


Say Yes

by iheartkarmy



Category: Faking It (TV 2014)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Karma and Amy in college, Karma realizing, Weekend visit, turning point
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-09
Updated: 2016-02-29
Packaged: 2018-04-30 19:59:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 52,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5177801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iheartkarmy/pseuds/iheartkarmy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Amy and Karma have gotten past their issues and gone off to separate colleges. But what happens when Amy spends the weekend at Karma's school and Karma realizes the feelings and desires she's pushed away for so long won't stay gone anymore? T for now, M maybe later.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

In the end, Karma's wrong.

It isn't the summer they spend apart that ends them. It's the night they spend  _together._

She never imagined it could be like that. She never once thought of being with a girl, certainly not with  _Amy_ , of all people.

And  _that_  she knows is one of those devil's in the details, pay extra  _close_  attention to the words kind of lies, not unlike the one that sent Amy off on that summer apart she was so sure would be the death of them, not unlike 'I  _can't_ ', which wasn't 'it didn't mean anything' or 'I was thinking of Liam the whole time' or even 'no'.  _This_  was one of  _those_ kinds of lies.

She never once thought of being with a girl.  _Once_.

Oh, if it had only been once. If that idea had only crossed her mind once or maybe even twice, or only when she was drunk or lonely or bored to death in class or tired of listening to Liam (and God, it would have been all the fucking time then) or any one of a hundred times when thoughts like that, she was sure, occured to everyone.

Who hasn't sexually fantasized their way through a boring Biology lecture? Or a trip to the dentist? Or all forty-eight hours of parent's weekend because - by Gaia - if she had to listen to one more discussion of how the new smoothie flavors were taking of and whoever would have thought  _not_  including pot in the brownies would actually make them taste  _better_ , she was going to have to fuck  _someone_.

It didn't cross her mind just once or a hundred times or a thousand times and it was never just  _any_  girl and Karma knew it. But she also knew -  _knew_  - the damage it could do to them. She had seen first hand the destruction sex could do to a relationship (and she had long since stopped considering what she and Amy had as a  _friend_  kind of ship.) She'd seen it more than once.

See Liam. See Wade. See Frank and Jackson and that other guy - what the  _hell_  was his name? - the one with the long hair and the  _arms_  and the habit of walking around the dorm shirtless…

_Davis._

So, yeah, maybe the sex had been good. Maybe in some cases (Davis, in particular) it has been  _more_ than good. But, in Karma's experience, in the end it had always been exactly  _that_.

The end.

Maybe not right away. It wasn't like she'd fuck and run or they'd cum and quit, but it was always the first step on that slippery slope that always ended with someone in tears and someone's heart in tatters.

And that - that  _end_  - was the one thing Karma couldn't have with Amy. They had, somehow, survived faking it and the Liam incident and the drunken pool kiss and even the summer apart, which had - to Karma's everlasting surprise - actually brought them closer. Their relationship could stand up to almost anything.

Karma was in no hurry to test that 'almost', no matter how much some parts of her wanted to.

And so maybe by the time junior year of college rolled around they weren't as close as they'd once been (no one was  _ever_  that close). Living on opposite coasts and making fewer and fewer trips home - which Austin still was, even if in name only - could do that to even the best of friends. And  _that_ , Karma was sure, was what they still were - the best of friends.

"We don't need to be in the same  _place_  to be  _together_ ," Karma said, the night before they flew off in opposite directions for college. Amy nodded, always agreeable, always going along with Karma's still intact plan of growing old together, living next door to each other, maybe even marrying siblings.

Karma had eventually grown (sort of) comfortable with the idea that it might be a brother and  _sister_ pair.

She still had some doubts though, even if Amy didn't. Even if Amy's ill-fated and anything but serious 'thing' (a term only Karma actually used) with Felix had done more to convince Amy that she was, in fact, gay than even her relationship (a term Karma still only occasionally used) with Reagan had.

"It happened once," Karma said, in reference to Amy and guys. "It could happen again."

Once, really, was Liam. Once was a mistake. Once was drunk and once was pain and once was anger and lashing out.

See Karma's thoughts on sex ruining everything.

So there were about a thousand good reasons (and about a thousand more not so good but always ready to be trotted out in a pinch) that even if Karma did, sometimes, consider or contemplate or spare even a single passing thought on the idea that she might one day hook up with a girl, she was beyond convinced that said girl would  _not_  be Amy.

"Why not?" Ashlyn asked.

Ash was Karma's very curious and  _very_ non-filtered roommate (think Lauren with even less tact) and whenever they had a few too many (which, with Ash, was so very often) the subject  _somehow_  turned to Karma's potential girl-on-girl tendencies.

How Karma never got the hint, Ashlyn never knew but, apparently, no matter how much she'd grown in college, Karma was still - more often than not - fucking oblivious.

"I've seen the picture, I've seen her on Skype," Ashlyn said. "I even saw her for like thirty seconds that one time she came here, before you whisked her away and disappeared for the entire weekend."

Ash leaned closer as she spoke - the concept of personal space was one Karma's roomie understood but didn't obey - and her breath tickled the hairs along the back of the redhead's neck, making her remember so many sleepovers when Amy's breath had done the same.

"Your bestie?" Ash said. "Fucking  _hot_."

Karma rolled her eyes, reminded Ash that she'd probably had a bit too much and - when Ash wouldn't let it go - she wandered off across the bar and found Davis leaning against a table and it took all of thirty seconds and one promise to let him do that thing he liked so much before Karma was in a cab on the way back to the dorm and all thoughts of Ash and Amy and warm breath on her neck were driven far from her mind.

Far. Driven far. Just never… far enough.

_That_  was the story of Karma's life when it came to Amy and sex and her. She could push it away - the thoughts, the want, the need - but it never stayed gone long.

There was that dream, back in high school, the one after she'd fucked Liam in the art room as a 'thank you' for saving them all for jail (which had nothing to do with knowing Amy and Reagan were off in a tent somewhere doing… well…  _things_ ). Karma remembered feeling a bit of  _something_  whenever she remembered the part of the dream that was her and Amy.

Or even when she remembered the part that was Amy and Reagan and, nope, Karma wasn't thinking too long or too hard about the common denominator in those equations. Especially not when she, as she always did, remembered the part that was Amy and Liam and fooling her and betraying her and there it was,  _again_.

Sex. Fucking everything up.

Even the men in her life couldn't make it go far enough or stay gone. It still drifted back, invading her mind at the most inopportune times.

Like when Davis was fucking her from behind in the tiny dorm laundry room and the sight of Amy's doughnut shirt - the one Karma had 'accidentally' stuck in her suitcase after their last mutual trip home - circling around and around in the washer had brought up a few thoughts of spots she might not mind Amy's tongue circling over and over and over….

Or when Frank offered to give her a shoulder rub in the hot tub after her first 5k run and hearing him offer to work the kinks out for her and the heat and his touch and the way those kinks melted away had sent her mind wandering and visions of Amy came tumbling along.

Amy in her bikini that last summer at the beach. The way Amy's face had flushed when she saw Karma in her Pamela Anderson-approved red lifeguard suit. Amy's face - red and sweaty and so  _hot_  in the non-sweaty way - when Karma had surprised her in California and walked in on her and  _Maisie_  (and God, Karma hated that bitch) just as Amy was squeezing said bitch's head between her thighs and letting loose a string of curses and commands that had made Karma's knees weak.

Amy herself was no help either. Like the time she answered their weekly Skype call flushed to the gills, nipples still so obviously fucking hard with someone's bra (tacky and ugly and fucking huge so it had to be Maisie) and how Amy kept the call oddly focused on her face and Karma swore a couple times her best friend's eyes were about to roll back into her head.

Yeah.  _That_  didn't help keep those thoughts at bay.

But it didn't matter how often the thoughts came or what her lust wanted or what that ache between her legs called out for. The  _only_  thing that mattered to Karma, the only thing that had  _ever_  mattered to Karma was what her heart wanted.

And her heart… well…

_Fuck_.

Her heart wanted Amy. It always had and it always would. But Karma's heart was much like the rest of her. Unsure, unfocused, confused, and reluctant.

In a word? Scared.

So Karma scratched her itch - or Davis of Frank or Jackson or the vibrator Ashlyn had helped her pick out one drunken night they never spoke of again - scratched it for her and Karma kept her eye on the prize.

Life. Life with Amy. Growing old together, houses next door to each other, kids playing together, sibling spouses who would just have to understand that they would always play second fiddle.

It was perfect. A fairytale. Everything she ever wanted. And sex, Karma knew, would just fuck it all up.

And, as it turned out?

She was right.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amy arrives in NYC to visit Karma at school and Karma has a startling realization. Short, but important.

It happens, as these things often do, when Karma's least expecting it.

Which, really, could have been any time because, let's be real, she was never expecting to sleep with Amy. Not that they  _slept_.

Well…  _Amy_ did. She slept peacefully, contentedly, like she hadn't slept in years. If anyone had asked, Karma would've guessed the last time Amy slept that well was the night before she said 'let's be lesbians' and it all went to hell. Or, maybe the night she and Reagan made love for the first time. Ironically enough, also the night before everything went to hell.

History, Karma knows, has a way of repeating itself.

It was just supposed to be a visit. Amy had a break, her school running on trimesters and all, and with Farrah and the new stepdaddy - enough of a fuckwit, Amy said, to make her miss Bruce - off on a cruise and Lauren still in the midst of her semester abroad and Shane… well… who the fuck knew what Shane was doing or where he was. They'd lost touch a bit since he'd gotten back together with Duke and started traveling everywhere MMA fights were fought.

That left no one in Austin but Liam and  _that_  was more than enough incentive for Amy to get over her aversion to NYC - which was really and aversion to crowds and to Ashlyn and not necessarily in that order - and hop a flight.

Karma promised to make sure Ash made herself scarce and to call in sick to all her shifts at the bar and spend all her time with her bestie.

She said  _that_.

"Every moment you're here," she said to Amy over the phone. "Nothing will stop me from spending all my time with my bestie."

And somewhere, sixteen year old Karma groaned and smacked herself in the head.

Karma met Amy at the airport and when she saw the blonde headed down the concourse, waving like the massive dork she'd always been, Karma felt something turn over inside her, like a switch flipping and there was this urge - a fucking  _craving_  - to feel Amy in her arms, to feel the other girl's skin on hers and to do nothing but breathe her in,  _soak_  her in, and if they never left baggage claim again, Karma wouldn't care as long as Amy never let go.

And what the  _fuck_ was that?

Seriously, though. What. The. Fuck?

She had no time to process it though, not even a moment because Amy was through the gate and swallowing her up in a hug and all Karma could wonder was if Amy had been working out because  _damn_ , girl had some guns now, and any and all ability Karma had to think - clearly or otherwise - evaporated the moment her head hit Amy's shoulder and blonde hairs tickled her cheek and her nose.

For the first time in months, there was no itch that needed scratching, no twitch shivering in her heart, no…

Oh.  _Fuck_.

There was nothing. Just Amy. Just her and Amy and just  _them_  and all was right with the world and Karma knew - whether she could think or not, she  _knew_  - that before this visit was through, she was going to sleep with Amy.

And she really didn't know what the hell to think about that, even if some parts of her might have had an idea or two.

The fact that she kept a smile plastered on her face and her hands to herself (except for the one Amy snatched up and wouldn't let go) and somehow -  _somehow_ \- managed to stay in the conversation all the way back to her dorm will be a source of amazement for Karma until the day she dies.

She had no idea how Amy didn't notice. Unless, Karma wondered, her palms were always that sweaty and she always had to ask for things to be repeated a couple of times and it was always Amy who had to yell at the cabbie that he was going the wrong fucking way to campus and stop fucking with them just because they're girls.

Because, you know, if that's the case, then yeah, she can  _totally_  tell how Amy never noticed.

Karma couldn't help wondering if this was what it had been like for Amy all those weeks in high school when they were faking it and - fuck all - if Karma hadn't already felt guilty about that, she sure as hell did then.

She discreetly (as discreetly as possible) slipped her hand out of Amy's - totally so she could bang on the plexiglass divider and remind the cabbie to stop fucking them around which, if she'd done it like five minutes earlier when Amy was saying it and not when they were thirty seconds from pulling up in front of her dorm, might have made  _some_  sense - and smiled at whatever Amy was saying and silently prayed that Ashlyn had  _not_  listened to her and was still camped out in their room and maybe even totally getting pounded by some drunken frat boy.

And yes, she even  _prayed_  'pounded' but she was still freaked out because her sweaty palms weren't the  _wettest_ part of her just because Amy had  _touched_  her and so the thought of being alone with her in a dorm room with a  _bed_  (and fuck it, a couch, a door, a fucking floor) was a little frightening.

This was a big deal. The biggest. Beyond the biggest.

This changed everything.

Except then Amy stepped out of the cab and tripped and Karma, on instinct, caught her by the elbow and kept her from sprawling onto the sidewalk and Amy looked up at her with this expression that even an oblivious Karma couldn't miss.

"There you are," Amy said. "Always catching me whenever I fall."

And right then and right there, Karma realized that this didn't change a fucking thing. This was how it had been, how it had always been and how it would always be.

She was in love with Amy.

And so Karma smiled and laughed and promised "Always" and her heart meant it but her mind…

Well, Karma's mind always was her Achilles' heel.

Which, in some ways, made it worse for her that her mind was doing considerably less of her thinking that other portions of her were right then. Maybe, just maybe, if her mind had been a bit more on point she'd have seen it coming.

She'd have noticed the way it took almost no effort to get Amy to come to the city. Or maybe she'd have noticed the way Amy kept looking at her, always watching, side-eyeing her, though that might have been easier to spot if Karma hadn't been doing the exact same thing to her.

Maybe Karma might have noticed that it wasn't just  _her_  hands that were so sweaty and it wasn't just her heart that was racing and maybe -  _maybe_  - she'd have seen it coming long before Amy said the words that really did change everything.

"I'm engaged."


	3. Chapter 3

I'm engaged.

Those are the words that ended it, even if there were  _so_ many words that came after it and even if  _all_ of those words were ones Karma meant, maybe more than any she'd ever meant before.

_Those_ were the words that asked questions Karma had no good (read: unselfish) answers to, the ones that made her confront everything ( _everything_ ) about her and Amy and how they'd been.

How they  _are_.

And really, those two words from Amy, and all the rest of the words from Karma, they aren't even  _the_ words. It's the words that came  _after_  those. They're the ones that finished it off and Karma will never understand how she came to say them, even though writing them wasn't quite the same and even though she knew she had to.

_Had_  to.

But that's how it ended and how it started… well… if Karma was being honest and actually looked at things closely enough (never her strong suit) it didn't start with Amy waving her way down an airport concourse or nearly falling getting out of the cab or even with the way she unceremoniously flopped down onto the bed in Karma's room and all Karma could think was how she didn't think she'd ever want Amy to leave that spot.

It started long before any of  _that_. It started in a ball pit or a tiny cardboard castle or one of a hundred other moments that she lived through but never felt (or  _let herself_ feel) because she was too little and never imagined and then, even when she was older and  _imagined_  far more than she knew she should, she was too busy... how did Lauren put it?

Chasing boys and the approval of others.

Yeah. That was pretty much true. But that was also much safer. Far safer than her 'imaginings' and safer, Karma  _knew_ , was better even if it meant her reality (LIam) was so much less than the life she lived in her head when she wasn't paying attention.

And even if it didn't start then, not 'officially', not for Karma at least (but she knew it did for Amy because Amy told her so in the single moment Karma felt most loved in her entire life which is  _so_ why she spent  _that_ night in Liam's arms), it could've started any one of a thousand other times.

The moment they kissed, when  _she_ knew  _exactly_  what Amy's ' _I_ know' meant. Or when they 'broke up' and Karma thought she'd gone too far (and who knew, really, that the sex addict thing would get  _that_  big?) and lost Amy forever. Or the night of the wedding when she broke Amy's heart (and her own) and spent the night crying and shaking in mortal terror that they'd never be right again.

Maybe the moment Liam confessed (even though he  _didn't_ , not really, and how many nights has she wondered what he would have done if she'd said  _any_  other name?) and Karma found herself wondering how she'd ever forgive Amy.

And, more importantly, how she  _couldn't_.

Or it might have been the moment when she stood by, helplessly crying, as Amy had rolled away with  _Pussy Explosion_  and Karma had wondered (every day for three months) if she'd ever come back. Or every single time, be it end of summer or a holiday break, or just a weekend visit, when they'd part again and go back to their separate lives.

It might have started any one (or all) of those times and Karma intentionally never wondered why every time she thinks it might have started was a time it might have  _ended_.

But that weekend, it didn't really start at the airport (when she knew they'd sleep together) or outside the cab (when she finally thought, 'out loud', that she loved Amy) but more, or less, it  _did_  start in that moment when she and Amy got to the room (the  _empty_ room because, of course, Ashlyn  _had_  to listen  _this_ time) and Amy dropped her suitcase on the floor and dove onto the bed.

And  _really_? Five seconds in the room and she was already on the bed?

It was a test. It had to be.

And if there was one thing her college GPA had taught Karma? She sucked at tests.

Amy patted the spot next to her and Karma dutifully (If as distantly and stiffly as humanly possible) dropped down next to her. They'd been like this a thousand times,  _ten_ thousand maybe, and not once had Karma ever felt  _every fucking bit_  of the distance between them like she did right then. It was like every inch of poorly made Bed, Bath, and Beyond comforter between the seemed to Karma to be not far enough and too fucking far all at once.

She was  _so_  screwed.

She could barely concentrate when Amy made small talk (and since when did they do small talk) and asked her if she'd met anyone new since that guy…

"Dave?" she asked. "David?"

"Davis," Karma corrected quietly, as she tried so very hard to distract herself and conjure up a mental image of Davis naked, stepping out of her shower, water dripping down his torso, tiny little rivers of it flowing between  _her_ breasts,  _her_ long blonde hair hanging down, framing  _her_ face….

So fucking screwed.

"So?" Amy prodded. "Have you? Is there anyone new in your life?"

Karma had to blink away the images in her head (like  _that_  would work). New? Someone new?

Well, not  _technically_  new…

"No," she said and how  _the fuck_  she didn't pick up on every signal Amy was laying down (especially since this was  _Amy_  and subtlety and Amy were never that well acquainted) and never once saw the pole or the hook or the work as Amy went fishing, Karma will never know.

She shrugged. "No one new," she said, as her fingers absently played with the loose end of a string on the comforter. "I haven't, um, had much time, you know? Classes and all."

It wasn't a total lie. Classes were a bitch and Karma had taken an overloaded schedule that semester which, combined with work and Ashlyn's insistence on dragging her to damn near every party in a two mile radius, had left Karma just about fried and in no condition to meet anyone new.

"I've been thinking of changing majors," she said, which earned her a Raudenfeld Roll (and when your best friend's eye rolling suddenly makes your stomach do flips…). Karma understood though, it wasn't like this was the fourth time she'd changed majors since she started college or anything.

"I don't think they award diplomas for trying every major in the school, Karms," Amy said with grin and how (just fucking  _how?_ ) had Karma never noticed the way that smile made her heart stop?

(Not skip a beat. Stop. Done. Over. Die fucking happy.)

And then Amy patted her knee and Karma felt her heart restart, hammering away at triple time in her chest and she suddenly had to be anywhere but right there, so she slid off the bed and moved to her desk, sticking her tongue out at Amy as she went.

"I just want to be sure," she said as she sat down in her desk chair. "I mean, I was always so set on music, but there's so many things out there. This school has sixty-five different majors, Amy.  _Sixty-five_. What if what I always thought I wanted wasn't…"

She trailed off because, really, she didn't have to look too closely to see  _that_.

But Amy either didn't notice or didn't care and, maybe, if Karma hadn't been so wrapped up in her own metaphor she might have caught it. The look on Amy's face, the way her eyes flickered down and away from Karma's as the redhead said the words, the way she swallowed hard and nodded just a little too enthusiastically. Maybe Karma might have caught on that Amy might have been thinking pretty much the same thing.

If she'd only been looking.

"That makes sense," Amy said. She sat up, pulling her legs underneath her on the bed, and she was practically vibrating with nervous energy and Karma couldn't remember the last time she saw her best friend like this. "But enough about all that," she said. "I've got forty-eight hours of freedom and I'm leaving  _you_  in charge of it. So, tell me. What are we doing? Clubbing? Frat party? Hiding the parts of Ashlyn's bed in different boy's rooms so she has to go hunting them all down?"

Karma laughed, Amy's enthusiasm was infectious and, for just a second, all of the other stuff (and by stuff, she totally meant every urge she had to really  _take charge_  of Amy for the rest of the weekend) slipped from her mind and it, in fact, stirred something in Karma that wasn't the  _same_  something that had been stirring since the moment she saw Amy again.

It stirred something that was the exact opposite. A calm, a peace, something Karma never felt except around Amy. Karma was always a nervous person by nature, anxious, a worrier, a stresser. Everything had to be right… no… not  _right_ , it had to be  _perfect_  and nothing ever was because nothing ever could be but when Amy was there, when Amy was near…

It settled. Amy soothed Karma in a way even her parents' 'special' brownies never could and she made it all seem like even imperfect might be good. Like it might be enough.

Karma had to fake a cough so she could look away because suddenly looking at Amy was like staring too long at the sun and it warmed her so, she was afraid she'd burn away. Karma hoped Amy didn't see it, she hoped this girl she'd loved her whole life (and was now pretty sure she'd been  _in love_  with for at least half of it) didn't see the way she was looking at her.

Maybe that hope was what blinded her. Blinded her to how Amy was looking at her in the exact same way.

And to the way Amy kept playing and fidgeting with the chain around her neck, the one that if Karma had looked close, she might have spotted it, she might have noticed the way that when Amy tangled it or flipped it just right way the light glinted off the diamond dangling from it.

She might have noticed.

But then Karma never did look very close.


	4. Chapter 4

There were so many memories, so many things Karma clung to, so many moments that drifted through her mind when she was alone or hurting and every one of them ( _every one_ ) was about Amy.

That didn't surprise her much. She'd spent most of her life with, around, near, and practically attached to the girl. Most every good moment she'd ever had (and more than a few of the bad too) she'd had with Amy. That wasn't about love or  _love_  or those odd (she  _so_ wanted them to be odd) desires she was having with increasing regularity. It was just the law of averages at work. Spend enough time with someone (not that she could  _ever_ spend enough time with Amy, and, oh fuck, she was even starting to nauseate herself now) and they were bound to go waltzing through your memory now and again.

So many of those moments Karma had never realized, had never  _seen_  or  _felt_  how special they were, not at the time. Their first kiss. Their  _second_ kiss. The look in Amy's eyes as she'd touched her face during the threesome that never was. The look in Amy's eyes every time she looked at her and how, just  _how_  Karma had never seen it, had never picked up on it until that toast at the wedding (the first time she ever understood how something could hurt so  _good_ ), she would never know.

There was one… this one moment that always somehow found a way to bubble to the surface at the most inopportune times. Like when Ashlyn was going on and on about the new guy in her Poly Sci class. Or when Davis was nibbling on her neck and his hands (so big, so much bigger and rougher than Amy's and God how she missed those hands and  _why_  was she thinking about that  _again_?) were roaming their way up her thighs.

Or when Amy was introducing her to Maisie and Karma could see the joy in her best friend's eyes, how excited she was, how this…  _other_ … girl had brought her back to life in ways Karma could only imagine.

Fuck did she hate that bitch.

But there was that memory again… those  _words_.

_Just you and me. I wish it could always be like this._

It was a slow dance, that memory, in fact  _and_  in Karma's mind. It was like its own little island in her thoughts… no… not an island. It was its own little  _world_ , this tiny little space she could never escape, could never get free of, the gravity was too strong and it always pulled her back in no matter how hard she resisted.

Not that she resisted all that much.

It w _as_  a slow dance, quite literally. Her head tucked beneath Amy's chin, her cheek resting against the blonde's chest, just the lightest, the tiniest bit of skin against skin, the sound of Amy's heart beating in chest was soft and steady and it was all Karma could hear and, she was pretty sure, it was all she'd ever  _want_  to hear. In  _her_ memory, Karma remembered everything else just slowly sinking away, disappearing below the surface until they were all that was left.

"Just you and me," she said, her breath soft against Amy's skin. "I wish it could always be like this."

_That_  was Karma's memory, the one she could never escape. Her one most perfect moment, the few minutes where none of the rest, not Liam, not faking it, not her family or Amy's, not the heartbreaks and betrayals and lies,  _none_  of it mattered.

It was her. It was Amy.

It was  _them_.

That was  _her_  memory but she knew, she  _remembered_  that it wasn't  _quite_  that way for Amy, that it wasn't quite  _her_  perfect moment. For Amy, what had been sheer ecstasy and perfection for Karma had been… well… all that  _and_  a layer of pain so deep Karma could hardly imagine it.

That moment was everything Amy had always wanted. And everything she was sure ( _sure_ ) she'd never have.

It took years. It took a bus rolling out of Austin and it took Reagan and it took different colleges on different coasts and it took so many nights and so many memories but finally?

Karma knew  _exactly_  how Amy had felt.

It ran through her like a train barreling down the track (and, yeah, she got the irony of  _that_  particular metaphor) and all Karma could do was lay down on the tracks.

She watched as Amy stepped out of the bathroom, putting the final touches on her outfit for their night on the town and Karma was… what was the word?... gobsmacked. Slack Jawed. Just fucking  _killed_.

She stared, not even trying to hide it, at her best friend (at least she  _thought_  it was Amy, but she couldn't be  _sure_  because, really… just…  _fuck_ ) and at her shape hugging black top with the tiny little peekaboo cutout at the top of her cleavage and let her eyes wander ( _roam_ ) ( _drink in_ ) ( _salivate_ ) their way down to that skirt, all tight and leather and red (and Karma couldn't help wondering when Amy had become  _all_  leg) and she was pretty sure there was no air left in the room because why else would she suddenly be unable to breathe?

"Woah," she said softly.

"I  _know_ ," Amy said. "It's too short isn't it? I told Lauren I couldn't pull off short. Or is it too tight?" She spun around so Karma could check the back and Karma immediately knew two things.

She needed to send Lauren a thank you text. Like  _now_.

And the phrases 'too short' or 'too tight' would  _never_ apply to anything Amy would wear ever again.

"Karma?" Amy said as she waved a hand in front of the other girl's face. "Should I change?"

Karma shook her head. She was afraid to speak (and, mostly, afraid of the words that might come out, words like 'never' and 'not a thing' and 'only if you're planning to take it all off and we're staying  _in_  for the night and the rest of our lives.') and Amy smiled at her and held out a hand.

"Ready?" she asked.

No. Karma wasn't ready. Not even fucking close.

But now she got it. She knew how Amy had felt, she knew why her best friend's heart had really been beating  _so fast_ during that  _slow_  dance and why it had seemed like she'd held on just a little longer than needed when the music had stopped.

Karma took Amy's hand and let her lead her out of the room and down the stairs to the waiting cab. And when they climbed in and Amy tugged her close Karma melted into her, letting the blonde's arm slip around her as she rested her head on Amy's shoulder.

"I missed you," Amy said quietly, the words just for them.

"I missed you too," Karma replied softly and she could only hope her voice hadn't betrayed her but right then? She didn't care. It didn't matter even the  _tiniest_  bit if Amy figured it out, if she suddenly sat back in her seat and looked at her with that  _so_  Amy look, the one she always gave her when she'd figured out one of her schemes or seen through one of her fibs ( _not_  lies.  _Fibs_ ).

Right then and there, Karma didn't care. She couldn't bring herself to pretend anymore, she couldn't find it in her to even begin to fake that this wasn't everything she wanted.

"Amy…" she said, turning her head so she could look up at her. The words were there, on the tip of her tongue and Karma knew this was  _it_ , the point of no return. This wasn't telling the school Amy was a sex addict, this wasn't almost ruining things for her and Reagan, this wasn't ( _so wasn't_ ) the pool kiss. This was something she couldn't back out of, couldn't explain away, couldn't devils-in-the-details lie her way out of.

"Yeah?" Amy asked, as she scooted closer and tipped her head against the top of Karma's, the motion just enough to shift that top  _and_  that cutout and Karma couldn't help it, her eyes just drifted (yup…  _drifted_ ) that way, and she saw it then. The smooth expanse of Amy's skin just beneath that black silk and it looked so…

_Shiny_.

Like a diamond. A diamond on a ring on a chain resting against Amy's skin.

"I… I really missed you," Karma said. And Amy squeezed her tight and mumbled an 'I really missed you too' into her hair and Karma huddled against her the rest of the ride, her hands linked around Amy's waist and her head on her shoulder.

And her eyes never moved once.


	5. Chapter 5

There was a time, and it wasn't  _all_  that long ago, when Karma knew every piece of jewelry Amy owned.

There was the bracelet Karma gave her when she turned sixteen, the one with both their birthstones in it and 'Always' inscribed between them and  _motherfucker_  even  _then_  Karma was waterboarding  _both_  their fucking hearts.

Then there was the pair of rings, one emerald and one ruby. Amy's Nana gave them to her when she was nine and they came complete with a built in backstory about belonging to her great-great-great-grandnana from the 'old country' which Karma knew (but never told Amy) was a complete load of BS cause she saw the same set at Walmart for twenty bucks.

Amy owned a half dozen pairs of earrings, including those ridiculous doughnut shaped ones from Reagan (which had  _nothing_  to do with why Karma  _hated_  them so much and might -  _might_  - have 'misplaced' them during a sleepover senior year). There were a few assorted rings Amy'd picked up at junk sales with Karma's mother (some she bought just to keep Molly from buying them and forcing them on Karma), a toe ring some cousin had given her for Christmas, a charm bracelet Bruce bought her (that she never wore) and, of course, her half of the 'Best Friends' necklace.

It wasn't the original. Karma had never found hers after the move, but their last night in Austin she'd surprised Amy with a new one. "It cost me a month's tips to get there," she'd said. "Worth  _every_  penny."

It had been  _two_ months, but the look on Amy's face and the way she hugged Karma extra tight (and extra long and Karma had been extra  _not_  complaining) would've been worth a year's worth of tips.

In all of it, in every piece of knock off crap and supposed family heirlooms and the occasional decent piece, there was one thing conspicuous by its absence.

A diamond.

Amy  _hated_  diamonds. Farrah had rocked a parade of them over the years, every one bigger than the last and every one of them stuck around longer than the man that gave them to her and sometimes Karma thought it was a sign. The bigger the diamond, the shorter the marriage.

As long as Karma had known her, Amy had never owned, borrowed, or even  _worn_  a diamond, no matter how often Karma tried to convince her she could. "It won't make your skin turn green," she said. "Or make you break out in hives or doom you to a lifetime of failed marriages."

It didn't matter what she said. When it came to Amy, diamonds were a no go.

At least, they  _had_ been. That fucking  _rock_  (and it was a fucking  _sparkler_  and yes, Karma was pretty sure she would  _always_ refer to it as that  _fucking_  whatever) that dangled between Amy's breasts suggested otherwise.

And Karma didn't know what the hell to do with  _that_.

That fucking  _rock_  (and really, anything that big could only be a  _rock_  cause it was too big to be tasteful like a  _stone_  would be) was on her mind the entire night. It was on her mind through the first round of whiskey shots, the ones Amy talked her into.

"It'll put hair on your chest," the blonde joked as she downed her shot and slammed the glass on the bar and all Karma could think about was something else (that fucking  _rock_ ) that was  _already_  on Amy's chest.

It stayed on her mind through the second round of shots (tequila, she thought) but the whiskey still burned and the fucking  _rock_  was still there (and now that Karma  _knew_  it was there she could  _see_  it, no matter how covered it was or what angle Amy stood at or even if she disappeared to the bathroom for a minute, probably to polish the fucking  _thing_ ) so, really, Karma could have been drinking bleach and she wouldn't have noticed.

She thought about it through their first three dances, through the two guys she fended off by dancing closer to Amy (city boys weren't nearly as into lesbians as high school fuckboys), through the four girls Amy had to politely turn down (and  _fuck all_  the gaydar on those bitches), and through the third round of shots that Karma thought were Sex on the Beach but could have been Purple Hooters or Scooby Snacks or Buttery Nipples for all she knew cause, really, all she could see, hear, smell, and fucking  _feel_  was the weight of that fucking  _rock_ against her own chest and in her hands and  _why the fuck was Amy wearing a diamond_  and, more importantly,  _not telling her about it?_

There was an  _obvious_  answer but it was one Karma didn't want to consider. One that started with 'M' and ended like 'daisy' and  _fuck_  Karma knew she'd be  _trouble_  with her pretty name and her big ( _giant_ ) fucking tits and she probably smelled like fucking roses and sweetgrass and Karma just bet ( _fucking bet_ ) her pussy tasted like sunflowers.

And maybe (not  _maybe_ ) that last shot had been one too many.

So, of course, Karma had another.

The whole night was decidedly  _not_  going according to plan (yes, Karma had a plan because… well…  _Karma_ ) and maybe it hadn't been her  _best_  plan, but she'd barely had time to think before Amy had come out in that outfit and then there was hand holding and 'I missed you' and  _then_  there was that fucking  _rock_ so she hadn't had time for her usual level of complexity.

Step One: Kiss Amy

Step Two: Bring Amy home

Step Three: Kiss Amy (again)

(some steps beared repeating)

Step Four: Kiss Amy (again and again and in less clothing)

(though maybe leaving the skirt on)

(but  _not_ the underwear)

Step Five: Convince Amy to transfer to NYC, spend all of college (or what was left of it) together, get married, live in one house (no need for next door anymore), have teeny-tiny Karmy babies (Amy would carry the first two, Karma the last one), grow old together, sip iced tea.

But see, the problem was that the night was  _so_  not going according to plan because there'd been no kisses (though that one persistent  _bitch_  had almost kissed Karma's fist when she got a bit handsy with Amy on the dance floor). And there was definitely not less clothing and Karma suspected (probably rightly) that there wouldn't be, not so long as that fucking  _rock_  was hiding behind Amy's top.

Transfer plans? Housing choices? Babies?

That all seemed a bit premature. After all, Amy was wearing another woman's fucking  _rock_  and Karma was no homewrecker. Especially since that…  _thing_  Amy was wearing made one other  _thing_  very, very clear.

Karma was the new Amy. The tables had turned. She was the one with the unrequited love who would have to watch from afar as Amy made a life with someone else. And yeah, that fucking hurt and maybe ( _so not_  maybe) that was a good ( _very_ good) reason for Karma to pass up the fourth and fifth (and maybe one or two or she lost fucking count more after that) shots of the evening.

So, of course, she  _didn't_.

Which totally explained how she ended up like a typical college student (and God, how Karma hated being  _typical_ ), with her head over the toilet and her best friend holding her hair back. And as if the nausea that rolled through her wasn't bad enough, if being reduced to a pukey mess wasn't enough to turn her red with shame, well…

There were always the thoughts Amy's hands were arousing (and yeah,  _that_  was  _the_  word for it) in her. Those hands tangled in her hair gave Karma all kinds of thoughts of other times and reasons and positions (so  _many_  positions) they could have been in with Amy's hands in those exact spots and Karma's hands roaming all over Amy's body and she kinda doubted Amy tasted like sunflowers but she was willing to bet it was something like the flavor of heaven.

And for  _fuck's_ sake…

What, Karma wondered, was the point of getting blind stinking drunk if it didn't even kill the crazy? Because she knew that's what it was. Crazy. Crazy talk, total madness, utter fucking insanity. She had let her emotions get ahead of her and let that connection she and Amy always shared just explode inside her mind. She'd done what she always did and made so much bigger a deal out of everything than it really was.

Karma knew the truth. She couldn't be in love with Amy. She  _couldn't_  be. If she was, if she'd been in love with Amy all this time, she'd have known. Because if there was one thing Karma knew, it was herself. If she'd been in love with Amy all this time, what level of denial could she possible have been in?

She couldn't be.

Nobody buried something that deep, right?

Right.

_Right?_

And second of all, she thought (and she'd  _been_  counting, right?) if she was so in love with Amy, if Amy was the one she wanted to be with, if Amy was the one who dominated her thoughts so much that she'd just thought her name  _three_ times in like  _ten fucking seconds_  of drunken rambling, the explain this.

This being Liam. And Jackson. And Frank and Davis.

If Karma was so in love with Amy, so in love with  _another girl_  (sorry…  _woman_ ) then those four  _men_  would never have  _been_ , certainly not in the quantity (Liam) ( _and_  Davis) and frequency (Jackson) and variety (Davis,  _again_ ) of ways (and positions) they had been. That would make Karma bi and, Shane's protests (and Reagan's issues) aside, Karma knew enough about being bi to know that if  _she_  happened to  _be_  bi, she'd have fucking known.

Right?

Right.

Except….

Except she'd never once spent even a single second thinking about lives with  _them_. Not one moment spent pondering where they would live or how many kids they'd have or how any of them would look when they were old or imagining watching the sunset from the front porch and sipping iced tea.

That had never been  _them_.

That had always been  _her._

Oh. My. God.

She'd always been in love with Amy and yes, Karma  _knew_  she'd figured that out hours ago but she was drunk and Amy was touching her and there was the fucking  _rock_ … and so maybe she realized then that she'd missed a few hints, some  _suggestions_  that there might have been something more, that maybe she had less 'love' for Amy and more 'LOVE' (her drunken mind caps locked it all) but she also realized something else, something far more important.

It didn't matter.

It didn't matter for one simple, irrefutable,  _super_  important reason.

_Amy_ didn't love  _her_ like that. Not anymore.

That fucking  _rock_  proved that.

"Karma?" Amy's voice echoed off the tile in the bathroom and snapped her out of her drunken stupor long enough to grunt something that approximated a reply.

Amy's fingers slipped from Karma's hair to her back. She rubbed small circles, her nails occassionally sliding across the bare skin of Karma's back (she'd stripped to her bra just in time for round one) and every time ( _every_  fucking  _time_ ) they did it sent a wave of  _something_  rolling through her, but Karma held it back and managed a nod.

"I'll be right back, OK?" Amy asked. "I'm going to get you some water."

She nodded again but Amy was already headed for the small fridge next to Ashlyn's bed, so Karma slowly sat back and leaned against the cool bathroom wall and waited until Amy dropped back onto the floor next to her, settling onto her knees as she handed Karma the open bottle of water. She waited until Karma took a few slow and tentative sips before speaking again.

"You want to tell me what's wrong?"

Karma popped one eye open, squinting against the impossibly bright lights in the bathroom until Amy reached up and flicked them off. "Too much," Karma mumbled (which was  _so_ true on  _so_  many levels). "Too much to drink," she added, which was also the truth, but only part (the part that didn't matter). "It happens."

Amy nodded. "Yeah," she said. "But not to  _you_  and not like this. Not since the party…"

The party.  _The_  party. The one with the pool and the fight and the Wade and the body shots and the splash and… and…

And the kiss.

Karma groaned and Amy scooted closer.

"I haven't seen you like this since then," Amy said. "And we've gone out plenty of times."

"Just because  _you_ haven't  _seen_ it that doesn't mean it hasn't happened," Karma said and she immediately regretted the tone, the snap to it, the clipped way the word shot from her lips like tiny bullets. But either Amy didn't notice or didn't care and instead of pulling away, she settled down further onto the floor, her legs stretched out on either side of Karma.

The bare skin of one of those legs (still in  _that_  skirt) brushed against Karma's hand and she tipped her head back against the wall and prayed a little prayer to any of the Gods or Goddesses or spirits or what-the-fuck-ever her parents believed in that she could just pass out before she said (or  _did_ ) something stupid involving  _those_  legs and  _that_ skirt and finding some way ( _any_  way) to get it off Amy.

"I know I haven't been… around as much," Amy said. "I mean, obviously, we live on different coasts and all, and you've been busy with school and your music and work and I've been busy with classes and Maisie -"

"How is she?" Karma interrupted. " _Maisie_?" She was glad her eyes were closed so Amy wouldn't spot them drifting to  _that_  spot where that fucking  _rock_  was hiding.

If she'd been sober, Karma would have noticed. She would have  _heard_  it, the pregnant pause between her question and Amy's answer ("Good. She's… good.") which wasn't much of an answer at all, not in the  _words_  at least.

But Karma  _wasn't_  sober, not in the slightest, and she wanted to hear about Maisie about as much as she wanted another shot (which she'd  _need_  if Amy started talking about  _her_ ). As it turned out, that was just fine with Amy because she soldiered on as if Karma had never spoken.

"And I know," she said. "That I missed a couple Skype dates and phone calls and I really didn't  _mean_  to, but things have gotten… well… I mean…  _shit_ … that's  _really_  why I came here cause there's something I want… no…  _need_ … to talk to you about and I can't believe I'm doing this when you're drunk but maybe that's just easier or maybe I think you'll actually tell me the truth now cause, you know, like Felix said about people and what they do when they're drunk -"

Karma lurched suddenly and pushed past Amy and dove for the toilet, the last of the shots roaring back at her. Amy caught her by the shoulder and held her back from slamming against the porcelain.

"It's going to be OK," she whispered, as her free hand rubbed calming circles on Karma's arm.

Karma wasn't sober, not in the least, and she had no earthly idea what Amy had been about to tell her, but as she heard her best friend (her  _love_  and oh  _fuck_  did that word hurt) whisper over and over again that it was all going to be OK, Karma let herself think that maybe, just maybe, it would be.

She really should have known better.


	6. Chapter 6

They had a sleepover routine and, as drunk as she was, Karma still clung to it.

They couldn't sleep apart, not when they could be  _together_ , the closer the better (and yes, Karma saw  _now_  how glaringly obvious  _that_ should have been) and,  _most_  importantly, no one slept before night-noon.

That was what Amy had called it, at eight-years-old, when the 'middle of the night' actually meant  _the middle_  and she informed Farrah in no uncertain terms that the two of them would be staying up  _as late as they wanted_.

"That's the rule,  _mom_ ," she said. "No one sleeps before night noon. Or gets up before  _real_ noon."

So say we all.

It became their rule  _and_ their challenge, almost a competition. No sleep till night noon (which, as the years went on, changed to one then two then three in the morning) and no waking before real noon. Except on school days. Or if Farrah bought doughnuts for breakfast.

"On doughnut days," Amy said, "sleep can go fuck itself."

And so it went, for hundreds of sleepovers, maybe even  _thousands_  (Karma had tried to do the math once but it only made her head hurt) and no matter the challenge and no matter how much she hated to lose (and she  _so_  did), Karma fell first every time.

Except, she supposed, the one time (and in the one  _way_ ) that actually  _mattered_.

Sleepovers always ended the same, with the two of them cuddled on the bed, sharing the one blanket or, in the summer heat, the one thin sheet. Karma's head would rest on Amy's chest with the blonde's laptop between them, playing  _House Hunters_  or  _Dance Moms_  or whatever nightmare inducing documentary Amy had finally convinced her to watch.

Karma always fall asleep first and then always ( _always_ ) found herself awake first, sometime in the  _real_  middle of the night, long past night noon but too early for the sun or the rooster (and  _fuck_  how they'd giggled the one time Farrah called it a 'cock') and  _beyond_  too early for Amy. Her best friend, Karma had discovered, slept the sleep of the dead and that left her alone in the dark, with her thoughts.

Like that could end well.

Karma  _never_  slept well, not ever. Her mind… it was  _always_  going, always digging at  _something_ , always working one of the million things that whirled around in it during the day.  _Then_ , she had things to distract her, things she could focus on to keep the worry-hounds at bay. But in the middle of the night, with night noon well behind her and the sun far from near?

The middle of the night wasn't Karma's friend. And college and moving away and starting her own life had done nothing to change that.

By the time Amy came to visit her  _that_  weekend (and it would always be  _that_  weekend in her mind, forever and ever, amen) Karma hadn't had a decent night's sleep since… well… since the last time Amy came to visit. And it wasn't like Amy being there made her sleep ( _nothing_  did that) but there was something…  _something_  about Amy being there that just made it…  _easier_.

So many nights Karma had woken up before Amy and just stayed there, cuddled against her, just staring at her She'd spent hundreds of hours on hundreds of nights staring at the vague shadowy outline of her best friend's face in the dark. Staring and studying and memorizing (and  _yes_ , she should have fucking seen it or at least not  _ignored_  it) and  _talking_. She had entire conversations with Amy that the blonde never heard, but it didn't matter.

More sleep or not, Karma never felt even half as refreshed as she did after a night with Amy.

_That_  night (and it only stayed  _that_  night for twenty-four hours or so, until it was replaced by  _THAT_  night), the night of the touches and the 'missed you's' and that fucking  _rock_ , was no different. Amy helped her to make the long walk (and it seemed  _so_  fucking long, the longest walk Karma could ever remember) from bathroom to bed. She got Karma settled safely under the blanket and then turned, her intention to give Karma room, to sleep in Ashlyn's empty bed.

"No," Karma croaked. She held up the blanket. "Under," she said. Amy resisted, briefly, but Karma held fast (mostly because she was almost asleep already) and the blonde finally gave in and scooted under the blanket. Karma slid closer, almost on instinct, letting Amy's embrace swallow her up, their legs tangling under the blankets and hands slipping together.

Karma was out in moments.

And awake again in hours.

_That_  night was no different than so many others, except maybe darker (no ceiling stars and Ash's blackout drapes brought new meaning to  _pitch black_ ) but that didn't matter, not to Karma. She didn't need the light to see (to know) every inch of Amy's face. And she didn't need to see Amy to  _feel_  her there, wrapped around her, protecting her from the world.

But  _that_  night was different, so  _very_  different. It was the first night Karma didn't run from it, that she didn't pretend it wasn't happening, that she didn't (for the sake of their friendship, of course) wish it away.

It was the first night she  _said_  it.

"This is what I want," she whispered in the dark. "This is what I  _always_ want."

There's that saying about the truth and it setting you free. Karma didn't feel much freer (not with that fucking  _rock_  so close by) but she felt…  _less_. Less burdened. Less weighed down. Less exhausted. It was tiring work, she could finally admit, holding that all in, lying so long. Letting it out, admitting it… it felt  _good_. It felt right. It felt like… like…

The end.

_Fuck._

Just…  _fuck._

She knew it then, knew it for what it was. That moment, that night, that fucking  _rock_ , they were all screaming the same thing at her. This was it. She'd thought it in the cab earlier that night, that this was it, the moment she could never take back.

_This_  was  _that_  moment. Even if Amy never heard a word.

Karma knew then the most simple of truths. She could go right on feeling what she was feeling, she could go right on wishing for it, she could pine after Amy every single day for the rest of her life (and she  _so_  would) but it didn't matter.

Amy wouldn't be doing it with her.

This… this wasn't like before. This wasn't like the other times. There would be no secretive longing looks, there would be no band-aids over her  _real_  feelings. Amy was done.

_Done_.

Karma could hear her breathing. Slow. Steady. The sleep of the dead. And maybe ( _not_  maybe) that was what gave her the strength.

"It killed me," she said. "When Reagan came along. It fucking  _killed_  me."

She looked down in the dark, down to where their joined hands rested between them. Karma remembered once, as a kid, trying to pull away in the night, but Amy wouldn't let go and  _fuck_  why couldn't that still be true?

"It wasn't…  _I_ wasn't like that. Not at first," she said. "I  _was_  happy for you. I had Liam and you had someone who could give you what I…"

_Couldn't. Wouldn't._

"And then there was Communal and you said it.  _I_ was  _in love with you_." Karma squeezed her eyes shut, trading one darkness for another. "It makes me sound so horrible and selfish and maybe I was. But when you said  _that_ … I hated her. I fucking  _hated_  Reagan and I  _still_  fucking hate her and I always will and I  _know_  it wasn't her fault but I don't  _care_."

Karma rolled, settling onto her back and staring up at her dark and starless sky. "I always knew," she said. "I always knew how I felt about you, really."

_Just say the fucking words._

"I knew the moment you told me at the wedding," Karma said. "Maybe even before. But… it was the moment  _he_  said it. That was when I knew just how fucking screwed…"

_Wake up. Please, Amy._

Tears pooled in her eyes and Karma blinked them away. "Liam Booker said he loved me. In front of everyone. And that was the dream, right? That was the moment I'd waited my whole life for." Her grip tightened on Amy's hand. "I'd changed him. I'd changed the biggest player in school with my love and he loved me back and everyone heard it and it was all exactly how it should have been, it was fucking  _perfect_  except all I could think was why they fuck wasn't he  _you_?"

She let out a long shuddering breath and (somehow) slipped her hand from Amy's.

"I wanted you to be in love with me," she said. "Then. Now. Always. Even if I could never say it back, even if I could never show you." Her hand felt cold. "You  _have_  to believe me, you have to," she said. "I  _wanted_  it, Amy. I wanted  _you_."

Karma untangled their legs and slid herself across the bed, unable to bear touching Amy for one more second that wasn't her  _touching_  Amy.

"I didn't want to be alone in it," she said. "I didn't want to love someone who didn't love me. So instead I made  _you_  think you were alone in it and then I acted like a jealous brat when you found Reagan and then Maisie and now… "

_Now I'm alone in it. Forever_.

Karma turned, slipping her legs off the bed and letting her feel hit the floor. "I promise," she said softly. "I promise this time I'll be better. This time I won't make you feel guilty or like you're hurting me and I won't kiss you in any pools or run trains over your heart."

She stood, wobbling slightly, bracing herself against the bed until the room stopped spinning around her.

"I promise," Karma said. "I promise I'll be happy for you. I'll be the best friend you deserve and help you plan the wedding and… hell… I'll  _make_  Maisie like me. Somehow."

Karma took one step and paused. This was it. Her last chance and it didn't matter and it wouldn't change a thing but she  _had_  to. She couldn't  _not_  say it.

"I promise, Amy. I promised that I'll love you till the day I die. But you will  _never_  know."

She padded off into the bathroom, the night and the room far too dark for her to see in, far too dark for her to see Amy's eyes.

The ones that had been open the whole fucking time.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karma freaks out that she confessed to Amy and a chat with her roomie doesn't help.

Karma was drunk.

That was the  _only_ explanation, the only  _logical_  one at least. Though, if she was being honest, she'd probably passed logical right about the time she saw Amy dorking her way down the concourse.

Or the first time she caught a glimpse of that fucking  _rock_.

Either way, really.

Still, logical or not, drunk was the  _only_  excuse, the only way any of what she'd just done ( _said_ ) made any sense (it made  _no_ sense, none at all) and she didn't give even one tiny fuck what Felix said about drunk people (even if he was  _totally_  right) because that didn't help her and it definitely didn't change what she'd done ( _said_ ).

_I promise that I'll love you till the day I die_.

She'd said it. She'd  _actually_  said it. She hadn't said it the night of the wedding (even if she'd  _felt_  it) and she hadn't said it the day after (though,  _really_ , 'salt to my pepper? If that didn't fucking  _scream_  'I love you'...). She hadn't said it that night in the pool (she'd been  _busy_ ) and she hadn't said it the day Amy climbed onto the bus and drove away and she'd been pretty sure if she didn't say it  _that_  day, she never would.

But then she did.

Karma leaned against the sink in her bathroom and closed her eyes, hoping the darkness would be enough to keep her stomach from rolling again. But all it did was bring every vision of Amy she'd had that night bursting to the surface, peppering the inside of her eyelids with  _that_  outfit,  _that_  smile,  _that_ slow sexy swaying on the dance floor.

_That_  fucking rock.

She lurched, making it just in time, hitting her knees in front of the toilet as she heaved. But nothing came (there was nothing  _left_ ) but Karma still felt like everything inside her was trying so  _desperately_ to get out, to run away, to escape.

Or maybe that was just her.

"I said it," she muttered into the bowl. "Oh God… I said  _it_."

There'd been a few ( _more_  than a  _few_ ) times over the years when Karma had imagined how things might have been different if she'd just managed to say those words. Or even if she'd managed to  _not_  say others.

_Just not like that._

Her life had spun off on a course she'd never seen coming and all because she  _hadn't_  said those three little words. What if she had? There'd have been no Amy and Liam. No Amy and Reagan. No Amy and Maisie.

Karma tried not to think about why it was that everything was no Amy  _and_  someone else.

She tried not to think about Amy  _and_  someone else. Even though she knew now that she'd have to. Forever. And that thought made her retch again and still nothing came and that only made sense since she felt as  _empty_  as she ever had.

Karma heard the water running behind her and the a hand lifting her hair back and a cool cloth sliding across her neck. "Amy?"

"Not quite," Ashlyn said and Karma was both disappointed and relieved. She wasn't sure she'd  _ever_  be up to facing Amy but she knew she definitely wasn't just then.

"I didn't know you were here," Karma said. She shut her eyes and let the damp from the washcloth seep into her skin, soothing her muscles. "I thought you had a frat party."

"Party got broken up by campus security," Ash said. She pressed the cloth against Karma's neck with one hand and rubbed her other one along the redhead's arm. "And the guy I was with ditched me and I almost got busted. But that's OK." She leaned closer, resting her chin on Karma's shoulder. "The band sucked and the show was  _much_  better here."

"Shit," Karma groaned. "You heard that?"

"Almost every word," Ashlyn said and Karma could practically  _hear_  the smile. "I think I woke up in the middle, somewhere around the Liam confessing his love part."

Karma wanted to retch again. Just when she thought this couldn't get any worse.

"Amy's pretty lucky, you know," Ashlyn said. She flipped the washcloth over, letting the cool side drip across Karma's neck. "Most women don't ever get to hear that kind of love thrown their way. I mean,  _seriously_  Karms, that was some Nicky Sparks kinda game you were spitting."

"She didn't," Karma said softly. "Hear it, I mean. She's out. Amy sleeps…"  _I've had a thousand conversations with her she's never heard._ "When she's out, she's out."

"So," Ashlyn said, "what you're telling me is that you waited until  _after_  you fucked her into unconsciousness to confess your love?" She made a tut-tutting noise and plucked the cloth from Karma's neck. "Supposed to be the other way around, K."

Karma sat up and shook her head (a choice that seemed  _so_  much better before she actually did it). "We didn't," she said. "I mean  _I didn't_ , I mean there was no…" She let herself trail off before she managed to cover every cliche in the bad decisions guidebook.

Ashlyn ran the cool water over the washcloth and handed it to Karma. She hopped up on the sink, pulling one knee to her chest as she regarded her roommate "So there was no sexing and bow-chickie-bow-bow time?" she asked. "Just the big confession and then the whole slinking out of the room to hide?"

"I didn't  _slink_ ," Karma said. She pressed the washcloth to her forehead though it did nothing to alleviate the burning in her cheeks. "And there was no bow-chickie-bow and no confession."

"Really? Cause I'm pretty sure I heard a promise to love -"

" _You_  heard it," Karma snapped. " _She_  didn't. And if the person you're confessing your love to doesn't hear it or doesn't understand that's what you're doing…"

_you're the salt to my pepper_

_just you and me_

_I wish it could always be like this_

"Then it doesn't count," she finished. "And Amy didn't hear it. So nothing happened. It was nothing. I was drunk. I'm  _still_  drunk. That's all it was."

Ash seemed somewhat less than convinced. "You know what they say about drunk people and doing what they -"

"Yes," Karma cut her off. "I know.  _And_  I know it's a load of horseshit." She scooted back and pressed herself against the bathroom wall. "I wasn't trying… I didn't want… " She tipped her head against the wall.

"You didn't want to tell your soulmate you're as in love with her as she is with you?"

Karma squeezed the washcloth between her fingers, letting the water drip out and splash down onto her legs. "She's not," she said. "Amy's not in love with me. You heard me, Ash. You  _heard_. She's engaged. She's wearing another woman's ring."

Karma knew she didn't understand a lot about love. But she was pretty sure she got  _that_  part.

"Did she tell you about it?" Ashlyn asked. "Did she say the words 'I'm engaged'? Did she flash the ring for everyone to see and ask you to help her plan and pick out flowers and taste cakes and be her best woman?"

"No," Karma said. "But none of that matters. She's got the ring. She  _took_  the ring."

"So?"

" _So_ ," Karma said. "Amy wouldn't do that. She wouldn't take the ring and wear it, at  _all_ , unless she was going to say yes. She wouldn't… she wouldn't do it unless Maisie was the one."

"Bullshit."

Karma's eyes snapped open as fast as they could, which was about three times faster than they  _should_  have and the light in the bathroom made the world swim. "Bullshit?"

"Yes, Karma.  _Bullshit_. Totes bullshit, immense bullshit,  _all_  the bullshit." Ashlyn hopped off the counter and snatched the washcloth from Karma's hands. "You don't think you two are really fooling anyone, do you? Besides yourselves, I mean."

"I'm not…" Karma started and then…. "wait…  _anyone_?"

Ash laughed as she ran the washcloth under the water again. "We've got a pool going," she said. "The whole floor. When will Karma and Amy finally crack and admit their enduring sapphic sweetness and just get down to the scissoring already."

Karma  _saw_  Ashlyn, but she  _heard_  Shane and she had a sudden urge to crawl into the tub and never leave.

"A pool," she said. A pool. A fucking  _pool_. Because she and Amy always did so  _well_  with pools. "Sorry to disappoint," Karma said. "But nothing happened. We went to Neuro and I had one too many." She said  _one_  but she  _meant_  six or eight or, maybe, since her courage had deserted her until Amy was asleep, maybe it really been one too  _few_.

Ash frowned and, under different (less pukey and heartbreaking and all around shittacular) circumstances, Karma might have been touched by how invested her roommate was in her love life.

Even if probably only meant Ash had that weekend in the pool.

"Right," Ashlyn said. She dropped the washcloth back in Karma's lap and then leaned against the bathroom door. " _Nothing_ happened. Except, you know,  _I promise to love you -"_

"Ashlyn…" Karma warned but Ash didn't listen to her normally, much less when she was on a roll.

"And let's not forget the you two in the bed," Ashlyn steamrolled on. "With the hand holding and the cuddling and the half naked sprawling on top of each other."

Half… wait…  _what?_

Karma glanced down, noticing for the first time that she was in nothing but her panties and a thin tank top and just  _when the fuck_  had  _that_  happened and she remembered stripping to her bra before the puking and then (vaguely) a vision of Amy shimmying her pants down her legs swam before her eyes and then… the bra… and then the tank…

Oh.

Oh  _fuck_.

The color flooded Karma's cheeks again cause...well… Amy had seen her naked.  _Amy. Her. Naked._ Well, topless at least, and yeah, they'd seen each other in various states of undress over the years but this was  _topless_  and this was when  _Karma knew how she felt_  (and wasn't ignoring it) and the thought rumbled through her mind and she wondered what Amy had thought and what she had felt (and by felt, Karma totally meant  _feelings_ , not what Amy had  _felt_ ).

And she couldn't help it. Really she  _couldn't._

She wondered if Amy liked them. And if she liked them better than Maisie's.

"I mean, sure," Karma muttered. "I'm not as  _big_  as…  _her_ … but I've been told they're quite lovely."

"Karma?" Ash's voice snapped the redhead back to reality. "What are you talking about?"

"Nothing," Karma said as she crossed her arms in front of her chest. "There was nothing going on, Ash. Me and Amy and the bed… nothing."

"You were in bed," Ashlyn argued. "Together. Looking like…  _that_." She waved her hand in Karma's direction.

"You and I have shared a bed more than once, Ash."

Ashlyn glared and Karma knew she'd stepped in it.

"Sure we have," Ash said. "And when was the first time  _that_  happened… hmmm… Oh, I  _remember."_

"Ash…"

"It was the day Amy Skyped you and told you all about meeting Maisie." There was a smirk on Ash's face, one that always reminded Karma of Lauren. "And you curled up in my arms and cried so long I thought I was gonna have to hospitalize you for dehydration."

Karma pulled herself up from the floor. "That had nothing to do with… anything," she said and really she wasn't even convincing herself. "I was just sad… because…"

"Because…" Ash prompted.

"For the same reason I was sad when Liam started seeing that girl… what's her name?"

"Juliette."

"Right," Karma said. "Her. And the same way I was sad when Jackson started dating what's her face."

"Stacey."

"Right," Karma said again. "And the same way I was when Frank came out of the closet and moved in with that guy…"

"Dustin." Ash said.

"Yup, him." Karma said. "I was sad when Amy met Maisie the same way I was sad all those other times."

Ashlyn resisted the urge to point out that there was only one name in there that made Karma so sad she actually  _remembered_  it.

"I was  _sad_  for all of them," Karma said. "Because they had found it. That thing I can't ever seem to…" She leaned against the counter, consciously avoiding the mirror, and remembered the way she'd felt at prom. When Liam was with Sasha and Amy was with Felix and Wade couldn't even want her enough to  _choose_  her over  _Shane_.

It was different people. Different times. Different  _others_. But one thing was always the same.

It was never  _her_.

"It's the loss of possibility," she said quietly. "One more fish out of the sea. One more… one more someone whose someone is someone else." Karma squeezed her eyes closed, trapping the tears. "It doesn't matter how hard I look, I never find… I never find the one," she said. "The one who wants  _me_."

Ashlyn pushed off the door and stepped closer to Karma. She took her hand and slowly guided her from the bathroom. She led her to the side of the bed. Amy had rolled in her sleep and her back was to them and Karma was grateful cause at least that hid that fucking rock.

"You haven't found her?" Ash asked, her voice soft in Karma's ear. "Maybe you just haven't been looking in the right places."


	8. Chapter 8

_Maybe you just haven't been looking in the right places_

Ash's words kept rattling around inside her head as Karma stared down at Amy. She never once wondered if her roommate was right; she  _knew_  she was. Karma knew (and had known all along) that she'd spent her lifetime looking in  _all_  the wrong places. It seemed to Karma that she'd spent most every day she could remember always looking for someone  _else_  to validate her, to tell her she was special, to prove to her that she was worth it. Always  _looking_ and always  _ignoring_ or missing or just flat out pretending that the one person who could (who  _did_ ) do all that for her was right there the entire time.

Karma had known all along where the right place was. And she'd let it ( _her_ ) slip away.

_Bullshit. Totes bullshit, immense bullshit, all the bullshit_.

Ashlyn didn't believe it. She didn't want  _Karma_ to believe it.

_Did she tell you about it? Did she say the words 'I'm engaged'?_

Ash was persuasive, Karma had to give her that.

_Did she flash the ring for everyone to see and ask you to help her plan and pick out flowers and taste cakes and be her best woman?_

The words kept echoing in her head as she knelt on the edge of the bed. Amy rolled back over, so close that Karma could see the blonde's chest rise and fall with every breath. She reached out a hand, the temptation to shake Amy awake, to demand answers, to find out… the truth… she could, she still  _could_ because yeah, she'd said  _it,_ but Amy hadn't heard her (sleep of the dead and all) and no  _real_ damage had been done.

Except  _that_. Except  _that word_. Damage. That's what it was, that's what telling Amy was.  _Damage_. Karma knew that really doing it, and not just whispering it into the dark to be swallowed whole by the night, would ruin everything. It would damage them. It would  _break_  them. Their friendship was finally back on solid ground, back on track (and not the one running through Amy's heart cause  _that_  one had apparently taken a detour).

Confessing your love to the woman who  _tried_  over and over and fucking  _over_  again to love you and got nothing but pain in return? That, Karma knew, would be bad enough. Doing it after she'd… said 'yes'... to someone else? That  _wasn't_ damage. That was  _the end_.

Karma had lived without Amy once. For three long months. And fuck all did it suck. But it taught her that she  _could_  do it. It taught her that she could be  _just_  Karma and that was OK because  _just_  Karma wasn't so bad. Maybe she wasn't ideal, maybe she wasn't life goals or anything, but she wasn't  _bad_.

She was just  _better_  with Amy.

Karma had spent all three of those months convinced that the time apart would be the death of them and no amount of kisses or late night cuddles or slow dances or phony lesbian shenanigans would ever bring them back. And when Amy did finally come back and when Karma was proven wrong, when they were able to rebuild, she made herself a promise. She had played fast and loose with Amy's heart ( _unintentionally_ or not) too many times. She'd dodged the bullet and she was never going to reload that gun. Living without Amy was hell and nothing was worth risking that again.

_Nothing_.

So why, she wondered as she curled herself onto the bed next to Amy, if she  _knew_  it was  _damage_  and she  _knew_  it would leave them in  _ruins_ , then why the  _hell_  was she even considering it?

Karma knew the answer. It was the same answer to a thousand other questions in her life. It was  _Amy_. And if there was anything or anyone worth risking everything for…

And maybe Ash was  _right_. Maybe there was a reason Amy was wearing that fucking  _rock_  around her neck instead of on her finger. Maybe there was a reason she hadn't said anything about it yet, why she hadn't called or Skyped or sent a fucking carrier pigeon cross country to shout the news from the rooftops.

If Amy had proposed to  _her_ , Karma knew there wouldn't be a soul in all creation who wouldn't know her joy.

She scooted closer to Amy, watching her best friend's eyelids flutter in dream. It was  _ridiculous_ , Karma  _knew_  that. It was insane to think that Amy would cross the country and keep such a big thing from her without a  _very_  good reason and that reason just could  _not_  be some feelings Karma  _knew_  had died long ago. Thinking that way was  _insane. (Incredible)._ It was nuts. ( _Romantic as fuck_ ). It was simply delusional.

_Unless it wasn't_.

She closed her eyes for just a moment, trying to squelch the feeling that rolled through her. It was an impulse, that was all it was and Karma knew if she just…  _paused_ … if she just gave it a moment, it would pass. The urge would slip away, it would fall back into the recesses of her mind where it couldn't do any damage.

That urge, that  _need_  to do  _something_  was dangerous and Karma knew it. She'd known it when that same kind of urge had caused her to lash out at Amy when she thought the blonde wanted Liam. Or when it had landed her in Amy's backyard with her guitar. Or when she'd nearly gone through with the worst threesome idea  _ever_  (and considering her  _first_  almost threesome that was saying something).

Or when she'd kissed Amy in the deep end of the pool and nearly drowned their friendship forever.

Karma  _knew_  her urges led nowhere good. She'd known it all those other times and she knew it then when she moved even closer to Amy and let one leg drape it's way over hers. She brought her hand up and slowly brushed Amy's hair back out of her face and let that same hand slowly trace a path down the blonde's cheek.

She felt Amy's breath, slow and steady and warm against her skin and she wasn't sure if the fog filling her brain was from all the alcohol or the thought of all the places she'd like to feel that breath (starting with against her lips and ending with against her thighs). Karma lingered there, slowly running the pad of her thumb across Amy's lips. She was taking liberties she couldn't imagine, but she was lost. She was trapped in that moment of freedom to indulge in what she'd knew she'd probably never get to do again.

She  _suspected_  Maisie might frown upon Amy sharing a bed with another woman, even if that other woman was just Karma.

_Especially_  if it was just her.

Karma moved her hand back to Amy's cheek, her thumb ghosting over the skin. It wasn't the first time they'd been  _that_  close (and that wasn't even counting some of Karma's dreams) but it was the first time Karma had ever stayed there, in that moment. Every  _other_  time she'd let her eyes close again, let sleep and the warmth of Amy's body next to her slowly push it all back out of her mind. But not this time. This time she stayed.

Karma was still there, curled tight against Amy, her hand against the other girl's cheek when the blonde's eyes opened. "Hey," Amy said as her hand reached up and cupped Karma's against her cheek. "Feeling better?"

The  _usual_ answer was 'sort of', the  _good_  answer was 'yeah', and the  _right_ answer was 'fuck, no'.

_Karma's_ answer was "You're engaged."

It tumbled loose before she could stop it and then all she could do was watch Amy's face, looking for…  _fuck_ … she didn't even know what she was looking for. A flicker of confusion or a moment of abject denial? A momentary loss of sanity during which Amy leaned in and kissed her so soundly that the fucking  _rock_ dissolved into nothing in the face of what was ( _obviously_ ) a far superior love?

Karma watched for all that ( _especially_  the last part) but what she got was so much simpler. So much clearer. Two words that even hungover, lovesick, regretful Karma could understand.

"I am."


	9. Chapter 9

It was those two words that did it. It was those two words that  _killed_  Karma, that absolutely broke ( _shattered_ ) her heart.

_I am_

No. Not  _those_  two words.  _Those_  two she'd seen coming since the moment she'd spotted that fucking  _rock_  around Amy's neck. Maybe Ashlyn had held out some hope, maybe  _she'd_ been like those fucking ridiculous Karmy shippers back at Hester, the ones that had believed Amy and Karma would end up together no matter what.

"I still can't believe we're graduates," Lizbeth had said to Karma, five minutes after they'd all tossed their caps into the air and four minutes after Amy had disappeared into the crowd with Farrah and Bruce and her father and Lauren, leaving behind nothing but a whispered promise of swinging by the Ashcroft's later that night.

"I  _still_ can't believe we're graduates," Lizbeth repeated (a little louder), as she shifted in front of Karma (who hadn't heard her, what with her eyes still staring at the spot Amy had  _vanished_  into and her ears still listening to that faint promise). "And you and Amy aren't together? It's not right," she said. "It's just not  _right_."

Karma had agreed. Even if she wouldn't say it out loud or even to herself.

Ash was like Lizbeth who was like Leila who was like a dozen or so stubborn hold outs that refused to believe Karma was  _straight_  (and maybe she wasn't  _gay_  but there was still  _bi_  and  _Amysexual_  and come on, it was so fucking  _obvious_ ). Even Liam fell for it. He'd been obsessed with Karmy all throughout their last year and even into their first year of college.

"You're never going to love anyone like you love her, Karma," he said. That he said it over and over (including when she was  _under_  him and yes, she knew even then how  _bad_  an idea  _that_  was) should have been a sign.

A sign of what, Karma was never quite sure, but it had to be a sign of  _something_  when your ex-boyfriend, the first guy to ever say he loved you (because Kevin Cutter in fourth grade didn't count and Amy wasn't a  _guy_  and Karma had long since stopped wondering how much easier things would have been if she  _was_ ) kept insisting that you're feelings for your best friend were more than platonic.

"She's the love of your life, Karma," he said (and  _God_ , it was so fucking annoying how he kept using her name). "And we both know  _you're_  hers," he said (and  _why_  the  _fuck_  couldn't he just shut the fuck up and finish so she could get back to work cause her Sociology paper wasn't going to write itself.)

"Liam," she said, trying to warn him into shutting up but  _he_  didn't hear it  _that_  way (the fucking  _smirk_ on his face and the way he sped up, like he'd done something  _right_  - which was  _so_  not the case - told her that).

Moments later (very  _few_  moments,  _fleeting_  moments, thoughts of  _Amy_  filled moments), he mercifully rolled off her and propped himself up on one elbow next to her. "You're soulmates and you know it, Karma," he said (and did he  _keep_  saying her name so he remembered who he was talking to?).

And then Liam had said something, maybe the  _only_  thing he'd  _ever_  said to her that made any fucking sense at all.

"You two are meant to be," he said. "But if you don't do anything about it? Someone else will."

Liam wasn't her Aunt Sage. He didn't have ESP or tea leaves or goat entrails or that oddly graphically violent Tarot deck. But he'd done it anyway.

He'd predicted Maisie.

As if Karma had needed more reasons to hate him.

Ash and Lizbeth and Leila and Liam had all believed. Ash even did it in the face of that fucking  _rock_ , in the face of every bit of evidence to the contrary. It crossed Karma's mind, in those few short seconds between  _I am_  and those next two words (the ones that shattered her heart to the point she wasn't sure she could fucking  _breathe_ ) that  _they_  were all like  _Amy_. Amy who had believed (or let  _Shane_  make her believe) that, despite the mounting evidence (Liam and the thunderbox and the rejection after rejection after rejection) that Karma might really love her.

In  _that_  way.

And  _that_ night, the night of the drinks and the fucking  _rock_  and the puking and not looking in the right places and  _I am_  (and yes, that was  _technically_  in the morning and  _that_  was so  _besides_  the point), Karma almost joined them. She almost let Ash push her off that cliff (the cliffs of  _insanity_ ) into the pit of denial.

But Karma knew better. She knew  _Amy_  better. She knew, all Ash's perfectly logical and perfectly romantic protestations aside, Amy wouldn't wear that fucking  _rock_ , she wouldn't even  _think_  about putting it on, unless she was in love, unless the idea of spending a lifetime with Maisie was something she could imagine.

She wouldn't have been wearing that rock unless Liam had finally been right and someone else had done something about it.

Unless Karma was too late.

So it wasn't  _those_  two words ( _I am_ ) that did it. They weren't the ones that wrecked Karma's heart. It was the two that came  _after_ , the two that came  _next_.

"I'm sorry."

Karma was barely listening at that point. Her mind had gone (mostly) blank the moment those  _other_  two words left Amy's mouth. She'd been expecting them, she  _knew_  they were coming, but that didn't make them  _easy_  to hear. Her eyes had drifted from Amy's face down to  _that_  spot, to the one where 'V' (not  _x_ ), marked the spot, the neckline of Amy's tee shirt ( _so_  short and  _so_ thin, leaving  _so_  much leg exposed that Karma could feel under her, warm and soft and…  _not_  hers). The tee did less to hide it,  _so_  much less to hide the outline of that fucking  _rock_  against Amy's skin and Karma couldn't help staring.

Until those words.

"I'm sorry," Amy said. Her voice was so soft and so pained and Karma almost didn't hear her but there was something… familiar about it. Something that slipped inside Karma's mind and  _slapped_  her. It wasn't the words (Amy had apologized about a million times over the years for a million different things and  _those_  words just blended in with all the others). It was the… tone? The sound? The  _feel_?

So familiar…

_Have a good summer, Karma_

Oh. Oh  _fuck_.

It was  _that_. 'I'm sorry' meant  _that_  and  _that_ was about one step (one  _giant_  step, a fucking  _leap_ ) past anything Karma thought she could take. Her eyes snapped up to Amy's and she saw it all there, on her best friend's face and it hit Karma like a bomb, like a fucking  _nuke_  right between the eyes.

Best friend.

That was  _all_.  _That_ , that…  _thing_ … that she'd always held so close and so dear… that  _thing_  that had once been enough ( _more_  than enough), that had been more  _important_  to her than Liam and more important to Amy than Reagan?

That was all Amy would ever be.

So, maybe, in the end, 'I'm sorry' weren't the two words that did it either.  _Those_  weren't the words that  _killed_  her, that  _ruined_  her heart.

It was those  _other_  two.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karma wrestles with what to do and she and Amy discuss the engagement.

Karma knew what she had to do.

And they key word there?  _Had_.  _Had_ to do. No option. No  _want_  or  _need_  or  _desire_ implied. It was what she  _had_  to do, and there were no two ways about it.

For three months, back in high school, Karma had been convinced that time apart was going to be the death of them. She'd been sure ( _sure_ ) that Amy's little jaunt with the 'pussies' was going to do what Liam and drug busts and lies and Reagan and her own stupidity (and that summer was the time she first realized just how much of  _that_  there had been) hadn't done.

Somehow, with some help from Shane (and who the fuck would ever have seen  _that_  coming?) and a lot of soul searching, they'd survived. It had sucked, it had sucked out  _fucking_  loud but they had made it. Karma still remembered the moment Amy had come home (and by 'home' she totally meant  _Austin_  and not  _her_ ) and they'd seen each other across the courtyard on the first day of school.

Karma had envisioned it one or two ( _thousand_ ) times that summer, always playing out in a different way. There was the one where Amy had moved on so  _completely_ , so  _utterly_ , that she walked past Karma without a second glance. There was the one where Karma had let her anger win out (and make  _no_  mistake, there'd been a part of her that was  _so_  fucking angry) and  _she'd_  been the one to stalk past Amy, not even giving her the time of day.

There were others. Scenarios where Shane or Lauren played peace-maker and found some ridiculous pretext (the sort of thing that happened  _all_  the time in the movies Karma spent the entire summer practically devouring) to bring them together. Sometimes they tricked them into reuniting in  _their_  spot (on a blanket by the tree where she'd once staged that photo op that was so  _not_ just an excuse to kiss Amy).

(It  _so_  was)

Or Shane would shove Amy into the janitor's closet and Lauren would push Karma in and they'd lock the door and refuse to let them out. "Not until you make up," Shane said. "Or fuck. Or  _both_." Karma spent a lot of time daydreaming  _that_  one (and not much time  _at all_  wondering why it was so often  _that_  one).

In the end, it was the simplest one, the one she'd probably imagined the most. She and Amy saw each other across the courtyard and walked together, slowly.

"Hey," Amy said.

"Hey," Karma replied.

And then Amy took her hand and Karma smiled and they hugged and Karma swore ( _inside_ ) that she was never ( _ever_ ) going to let something like that (the separation, not the hug) happen again. She  _could_  live without Amy, that summer had taught her that.

It had also taught her that a life without Amy wasn't a life worth living.

So,  _that_  night (or, technically, morning) Karma knew what she  _had_ to do.

"I'm sorry," Amy said.

Somehow, Karma found her voice again. "Sorry? For what?"

There was a moment, the briefest of brief seconds, when Karma thought she saw something flit across Amy's face. Surprise? Shock? Disappointment? It was there, for that split of a split second and then it was gone and Karma pushed it aside, chalked it up to nothing but wishful thinking.

"That, I… um…" Amy stammered. She shook her head and Karma could almost hear her mind clearing and her thoughts clicking back into place. "That I didn't tell you sooner," she said. "I didn't want you to find out like…  _wait_ … how  _did_  you find out?" She tipped her head back, creating just a little distance (and even that  _little_  was  _too_  much if you asked Karma but nobody did). "Are you all mind readery?" she asked. "Like your Aunt?"

Karma laughed (because that was what was expected and Karma was  _good_  at  _that_.) "No," she said and reached out a hand, clasping the chain around Amy's neck (her fingers brushed against Amy's skin -  _obviously_  - and Karma somehow managed not to tremble). She pulled it gently, dragging that fucking  _rock_  up and out from under Amy's shirt.

She let the chain dangle and the diamond rest in her hand. It was her first  _good_  look at it (even if  _that_  word,  _good_ , could never apply to that... _thing_ ) and Karma was surprised. It was a little  _less_  than she'd thought. Not as big. Not as sparkly or as gaudy or tacky (so  _unlike_  the woman who had given it) and she actually thought it would look good on Amy. It would fit.

And how she didn't throw up in that very moment, at that very  _thought_ , Karma would never know.

"You  _hate_  diamonds," she said softly, as if Amy needed a reminder. "So I kinda figured… it's not like you'd buy it for yourself and I know I'm not… gay… but I was pretty sure even lesbians don't give things like  _this_ out all willy-nilly."

Amy laughed and (unlike Karma's) it sounded real and did nothing but remind Karma that for her  _best friend_ , this  _was_  real and she needed to wrap her head around that. No matter how much it hurt.

"I should have known," Amy said. "Nothing slips by you."

_Except you_.

Karma shook her head. "Not when it comes to you," she said. "I saw it in the cab last night and I wanted to ask but…"  _But I didn't. I didn't want to ask. I just wanted to rip it the fuck off you and throw it out the window and bring you home and never let you leave_. "I figured you'd tell me when you were ready."

Karma let the ring drop and it fell back against Amy's chest, resting against the thin fabric of her tee. "Yeah," Amy said. "It's the whole reason I came here, to tell you. But then you were so excited to see me and  _then_  we were having fun and  _then_ you got drunk…" She reached up and took the ring between her fingers, her thumb ghosting over the diamond. "I wasn't trying to keep it from you."

"I know," Karma said even if she  _knew_  no such fucking thing. "There just wasn't a good time."

Amy nodded. "Yeah," she said. "Maisie asked last week, right after our last Skype call and I didn't think... " She closed her fist around the ring and Karma was glad to see it disappear from view. She felt a weight lift from her chest and it was (almost) like she could breath again, if only for a moment. "This wasn't email or text message kind of news," Amy said.

"No," Karma said. "Definitely not. Definitely in person kinda news." She rolled onto her back, tearing her eyes away from Amy, their bare legs sliding against each other as she turned and she was barely able to stifle a moan and  _that_  shit was going to have to stop  _right fucking now_.

"I'm sure you have questions," Amy said and Karma swore she felt her  _best friend_  (and she would just keep saying that  _over and over_  until it sank in) scoot closer and let her leg rest against Karma's. "You  _always_  have questions."

Of course Karma had  _questions_. There were a million and one of them running through her mind but she had no idea where to start.

_Why the fuck did you say yes?_

OK. Maybe she had an  _idea_. But it was a  _bad_  one and Karma knew it. Just like she knew probably at least 999,990 of those questions bouncing round in her head were equally bad ideas. None of them would lead anywhere good. Every single one of them was a step onto a slippery slope that obviously ( _so_  obviously) led her nowhere but downhill, skidding and sledding and sliding into a confession. Into begging Amy not to marry that  _bitch_  (and  _maybe_  she wouldn't phrase it like  _that_ , but she couldn't be  _sure_ ). And that would lead to Amy telling her that she'd had her chance ( _chances_ , so fucking  _many_ ) and walking out and catching the first flight back to Cali and Karma couldn't… she just  _couldn't_.

"Nope," she said. "No questions," she said.

And then she closed her eyes and gave herself one last minute, one last momentary blip, a final second of fantasy. Her and Amy and  _their_  wedding with Molly and Lucas and Farrah and… well.. whoever the fuck Farrah was with now… sitting in the front row. Lauren standing beside Amy (because Karma couldn't be bride  _and_  maid of honor) and Ashlyn standing beside Karma (because  _fuck_  Zen). Shane would be there, of course, with Duke or Steve or Wallace or who-the-fuck-ever (like Karma gave even a  _single_  fuck about  _that_ ) but she  _did_  want him there.

"I knew it," he'd say "I knew it all along. This? This is thanks to me." And they would all laugh and remember and it wouldn't hurt anymore and it would all be  _perfect_.

Except it  _wouldn't_  be. Because all  _that_  was everything Karma had always wanted, but everything she'd never let herself admit to needing. And now?

It was everything she knew she'd never have.

And then her one last second, her tiny final blip, her final fantasy ended. And Karma knew what she had to do.

"I lied," she said as her eyes opened and stared up at her ceiling.

"You did?" Amy asked and Karma chose to ignore the hope in her  _best friend's_  voice because it was just her imagination. She was  _sure_  of that.

"Yeah, I did," she said. "Of  _course_  I have questions."

Karma rolled back over ( _so_  careful to keep her legs to herself) and smiled at Amy and told herself ( _again_ ) that that look on Amy's face was  _all in her fucking head_. "I mean, just the  _obvious_ ," she said. "Like, how did she ask and where's the ring from cause it looks a little old, like heirloom old not just 'oh I had this shit laying around and thought it would be good enough' old. And you are making me Maid of Honor, right? I mean, I know you and Lauren are all  _sisters_ now but we had a  _plan_ , Amy."

It was true. Karma had a plan. And maybe now that plan needed a little… revision. But she could live with that. She  _couldn't_  live without Amy. So she  _could_  live with a new plan.

She  _had_ to.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karma thinks and cries while Amy has a Skype heart to heart with Lauren.

There were things Karma _knew_ , things she _wanted_ to know, and things she could have happily spent the _rest of her fucking life_ being utterly clueless about.

The things she knew was a short and simple list. Water's wet. Her mother's a touch insane (and by a touch she meant, as Ash once put it, _totes nuts_ ). Liam is a fuckboy.

Amy is her _life_.

Karma knew that Amy was the greatest thing to ever happen to her (or that _would_ ever happen to her), bar fucking none. She wasn't entirely sure how she'd somehow ended up with Amy in her life, like what benevolent spirit or merciful God(dess) had looked down upon teeny-tiny fetus Karma and said 'You shall have an _Amy_ ' but she _knew_ if she ever found him or her or whatthefuckever she wold happily spend eternity thanking them in every way she knew how.

She also knew she could be a little overdramatic ( _clearly_ ) but when it came to Amy and how much she loved her and how grateful she was to have the blonde in her life (and her _heart_ and her fucking _soul_ and yes, just a _little_ overdramatic), Karma was convinced there was no such thing as _over_ anything.

The things she could have spent the rest of time knowing _nothing_ about? That list was even shorter _and_ considerably less sweet. It was, in a word, _Maisie_. If Karma could have found a way, even if it still meant Amy marrying _her_ , but Karma never had to see her, hear her, or be in her presence again, well Karma would have jumped at it.

Or so she _thought_. But that weekend taught Karma one very simple lesson. What she thought was so very, very often _so_ fucking wrong. She was the lesbian (or bi or Amysexual or who the fuck cares) Jon Snow.

You know nothing, Karma Ashcroft.

The things she _wanted_ to know… that list was long and varied but every single thing on it had one common (and not very surprising) denominator. Amy.

Karma _knew_ what it was like to kiss Amy and she _thought_ about it a lot. Most of the time at times when she shouldn't have been thinking of _that_ , like when other people's lips were on hers or other people's hands were touching her and all she could think of was Amy's lips and all she could do was wonder how she had ever managed to talk about how soft _Liam's_ lips were with a straight face. Karma _knew_ what it was like but she _wanted_ to know what it was like to _kiss_ her and not when she drunk or trying to turn on some ridiculous fuckboy. She wanted to know what it was like to kiss Amy when it was just for her. Just for them.

She _knew_ what it was like to be wrapped up in Amy's arms (the ones that made her feel safer than _any_ others) but she _wanted_ to know what it was like to be _held_ in them. Reagan knew that and so did Maisie and there were few things (OK, more than a _few_ ) Karma hated them both for more than that.

Most of all, Karma _knew_ what it was like to love Amy. She was pretty sure she knew that better than anyone. She'd done it longer and better (though, _maybe_ , that part was debatable) than anyone except Amy's mother. And that love was a _different_ love than her love but there was still one thing Farrah (and Reagan and Maisie) did that Karma wanted to do, more than _anything._

Karma knew what it was like to love Amy. She _wanted_ to know what it was like to say it. Out loud and in the light and _to her_.

She didn't know she already had.

It was all so… unfair, really. Karma _wanted_ to know what she'd done, what crime had she committed (probably, her mother would say, in one of her past lives) that warranted the punishment (because that's _exactly_ what it was) of having Amy in her life but not being able to _have_ her. She figured it had to be something big, something _huge_. Maybe a genocide or a religious persecution or mixing solids and plaids in one outfit.

She was kidding. Sort of.

Karma knew that she probably wasn't being punished for some past life (or current one) transgression and that, _really_ , the _only_ reason she couldn't _have_ Amy was… well… _her_.

_I love you Karma._

_If you love something, set it free._

_You can tell me that kiss meant something._

She'd had her chances, her opportunities, and those were just the _biggies_. Those were the 'Moments' with a capital 'M' and those didn't count every day in between. Those didn't include the hundreds of thousands of days they'd been in each other's lives and she'd never once made a move, never once even tried. Karma _knew_ if she'd put half as much effort into being honest with Amy (and herself) as she had into chasing Liam, that fucking _rock_ would be on some other girl's finger.

Karma knew it. She just didn't like to think about it but, that morning, it was _all_ she could think about it. And _that_ had everything to do with Amy and proximity and touch and Karma _knew_ she needed a shower. She needed the heat and the steam to clear her mind and to hide the redness under her eyes (it was hot water that did that, right? Or was it cold? _Fuck_ , she could never remember but since she was sobbing silently before she'd even made it under the spray it probably didn't matter).

She didn't really _need_ the shower. What she needed, she couldn't have. She _knew_ that.

Such a Jon fucking Snow.

* * *

Karma knew all _this_ and wanted to know all _that_ but Amy… well… Amy _wanted_ (and, really, _needed_ ) to know why the _fuck_ Karma had said all of _that_.

_I promise. I promise to love you until the day I die but you will_ never _know_.

Yeah. That. All the other stuff too, but _especially_ that.

Really, it wasn't even the _why_ she'd said it. Amy had some ideas on that score and so, apparently, did Lauren.

"It's classic fucking Karma and you know it," Lauren said ( _yelled,_ really) and Amy quickly adjusted the volume on Karma's laptop speakers. The redhead was in the _shower_ , not another _country_. "She saw the ring, right? And _then_ she said it all? That's when she confessed her long hidden love and how miserable she's been without you?"

Amy nodded. "She saw it in the cab on the way to the club," she said. Lauren's face on the screen was tanned and it was the most rested she could remember seeing her sister in years. Clearly, her semester abroad was doing her some good and Amy was regretting not finding a way to go with her, more by the minute. "And then she got totally shitfaced and we came back here and she was miserable and then we went to sleep and she woke up and said it. So, I mean, she _was_ drunk but you remember what Felix said about drunks -"

"And Felix would know," Lauren snapped. "Because, really, the person we should all be taking lessons from on drunk behavior is the teenage alcoholic." She glared at Amy (and made Amy _very_ glad they were thousands of miles apart). "Especially since _some_ of us are inclined to find _any_ fucking excuse for things, as long as it fits our high school fantasies."

Karma's laptop was considerably smaller than Amy's and the tiny screen made Lauren's head look fucking _huge_ and if Lauren hadn't been shredding her (and rightly so) right then, Amy probably would have laughed.

"That's not fair," Amy said, trying to fight back. Even though, really, she knew it was probably _more_ than fair. "I didn't ask Karma to spill her guts in the middle of the night."

"Of course you didn't," Lauren said. She leaned back a bit (and her head shrunk a little) and Amy could see the dark night sky out the windows behind her. "You'd have much preferred it in the daylight. Probably in the airport when you got there. Or maybe in the cab on the way to the club?" Amy looked down and Lauren knew she'd hit a nerve. "And we all thought Karma was the one who believed in fairy tales."

"I know," Amy said. "I know…"

"Do you?" Lauren asked. The sass was still there (it was _Lauren_ ) but there was a level of concern Amy only rarely heard from her sister. "Do you _really_? Because if you really _knew_ , I certainly don't think you'd be _there_. And you sure as hell wouldn't have told Maisie that you were -"

"I _know_ , Lauren," Amy snapped, cutting her off. "I didn't call you to be reminded that I'm a lying bitch and my fianc… girlf... _Maisie_ thinks I'm in Austin all alone."

The thought of it, of the lies she'd told and how easily Maisie had believed them, it fucking _killed_ Amy. It reminded her too much of trying to keep Reagan and Karma apart at first (and not just a _little_ of trying to keep the whole Liam fiasco quiet) and how those memories hadn't been enough to stop her, Amy wasn't quite sure. She knew it was wrong and horrible and a betrayal of both the women she loved most in the world.

But when you can say ' _both the women you love_ ' and _know_ that you mean it, that you _do_ love them both, honest and true (and yes, Amy saw the irony in _that_ phrase right then), well, that was enough to make it easy for Amy to understand that old 'desperate times, desperate measures' chestnut. And, _obviously,_ easy for her to lie to them both and super fucking _hard_ to know which she felt more guilty for.

"Why did you call me then?" Lauren asked. "You didn't really call me to see if I'd give you the OK to chase after Karma again, right?"

Amy shook her head. She knew _that_ was a lost cause. Lauren _loved_ Maisie. She thought Maisie was good for Amy and sweet and kind and _sane_ , which put her about six steps ahead of anyone else Amy had dated (Lauren had never never been able to see past the whole 'roofie' incident with Reagan). And while Lauren and Karma were more on the 'fre' part of 'frenemy' now than back in high school, this was _still_ Karma.

When it came to Amy's heart (and it _not_ breaking) Lauren had a very simple Karma policy.

_No_.

"I'm not trying to squash your dreams here," Lauren said (though they both knew she'd do _exactly_ that if it meant protecting Amy). "I _know_ how you feel about Karma." Amy almost hoped Lauren would explain it to her because sometimes even she didn't exactly understand it. "First loves are hard to get over."

"That why you took Theo back four times?" The words left Amy's mouth so fast _she_ almost didn't hear them and she'd never wished so badly for a WiFi signal to drop as she did in that moment. "I'm sorry," she said quickly. "I didn't mean… I'm just… _fuck…"_ Amy put her head in her hands and leaned her elbows on the desk in front of Karma's computer.

Lauren glared at her across the Internet for a moment and Amy was sure she was going to disconnect the call and leave her to fend for herself. "You're lucky I love you," Lauren finally said and Amy managed a small smile.

"I am," she said. "I know." She glanced back over her shoulder and listened for a moment, making sure she could still hear the sound of the shower running. "I don't know what to do," she said. "She said it, Lauren _._ Karma said _it._ "

Amy had long ago convinced herself (and Karma had helped, _a lot_ ) that she would never hear _it_ from her best friend. That no matter what happened, Karma would never say _that_ to her, that no matter how many times the redhead waterboarded her heart or gave her hope or did something that anyone (especially anyone that was still in fucking _love_ with her) would see as a total hint that that love wasn't totally unrequited, Karma would never say those words.

I love you. I love you like _that_.

And maybe she hadn't said those _exact_ words and maybe Amy was no expert in love (see Karma, Reagan, and Karma again) but even she knew ' _I promise to love you until the day I die_ ' meant 'I love you like _that_.' Or, really, she _would_ have known that. If it had been _anyone_ else saying it.

"She said it, Lauren," Amy said to the screen. "She said exactly what I came here to find out and now that she's said it…" Her hand closed around the ring dangling from the chain around her neck. "I don't know what the fuck to do about it."

"I do," Lauren said but then she stopped herself. If Amy had been watching the screen instead of staring down at the ring ( _her_ ring even if she couldn't quite think of it that way _yet_ ) she would have seen the war going on all across her sister's face. It was the battle between speaking the truth (get your ass on the first plane back to California and Maisie right this fucking minute) and giving Amy the space to figure it out on her own.

Lauren sucked at giving space. But she was trying.

"I know what you're thinking," Amy said and Lauren didn't doubt that she did. "Karma saw the ring and _that's_ why she said it. She was afraid she was losing me."

"Wouldn't be the first time," Lauren said. "But _I_ know what _you're_ thinking. If she was so afraid of losing you, why do the whole drunk bit? Why not say something the moment she saw it?"

Amy _was_ thinking that. That, and…

"Why wait till the middle of the night?" Lauren continued. "Why wait until you were asleep and wouldn't hear a word?"

Amy nodded. She wanted to know why Karma had said it at all, but she _needed_ to know why she'd said it _then_ , why she'd chosen that moment to bare her soul. The desperation, the fear of losing Amy, the acting out, all of that _was_ classic Karma.

Doing it when no one could see or hear (and by no one, Amy totally meant _her_ ), that was new, that was a plot twist Amy hadn't seen coming.

"Maybe _that's_ why she got so drunk?" Amy suggested. "She needed the courage to tell the truth and the pukes and the passing out just kinda got in the way?"

Amy didn't need to see the look on Lauren's face to know what her sister thought of that and, really, she couldn't blame her. They'd been down this road before and Lauren had helped pick up the pieces one too many times. Amy knew what Lauren was afraid of and she was afraid of the same thing, that her _want_ ( _need_ ) for Karma to have meant it, for Karma to somehow, after all this time, really feel the same way for her that she…

Felt?

Feels?

_Fuck_.

_This_ was the problem. _This_ was the whole issue, right fucking here. Amy's want blinded her. Her need confused her. If Maisie was a bright summer day full of promise and hope and sunflowers, the Karma was the fucking fog off the moors that made everything disappear and swallowed Amy whole.

And, apparently, made her into a gothic poet.

This want, this need wasn't just bad or wrong or problematic. It was (and had been, so many times) a mistake that plunged Amy into darkness and misery and this time, if _this_ was a _this_ time (if she _let_ it be) it might well be a disaster she couldn't come back from. And that wasn't fair to any of them, not to Karma, not to her, not to Maisie. Amy wanted Karma and she was convinced she always would but she didn't know if she could see past that want and see things as they really were.

"Tell me," she said. "Tell me what to do, Lauren, _please_?"

Lauren was quiet for a moment. "If you did what I told you to do, Amy, you'd be in California right now, fucking your fiancee until neither of you can walk," she said. "But then, you'd _have_ a fiancee instead of a…" Lauren trailed off, hunting for the right word. "What you call someone who proposes to you and you tell them you'll have to think about it?"

Amy sighed. There wasn't _a_ word for that, there were several. Confused. Heartbroken. Hopeful. A little angry. A lot worried.

She sighed again. There was _a_ word for it.

_Maisie._

Amy put her head in her hands again and pressed her fingers against her eyelids. She was pushing back against the tears she felt coming. "I fucked up, didn't I?" she asked. "I ruined everything."

"I don't know, Lauren said, honestly. "I _do_ know Maisie's not going to wait forever for an answer and if she figures out you're with Karma…" She saw Amy's body shudder on the other end of the call. "But you haven't done anything unforgivable yet," Lauren said. "You haven't…"

_Cheated._ Amy knew the end of that sentence just as surely as she knew Lauren would never say the word. First loves _are_ hard to get over. But when you agree to marry them and then they cheat on you with their new patrol partner, it's not hard anymore. It's next to fucking impossible.

"I'm not Theo," Amy said softly. "I won't do _that_. You know I won't. Nothing will happen, if anything even can happen, between me and Karma. Not until I tell Maisie."

As things turned out, Karma wasn't the only Jon Snow that weekend.

Lauren stared at her and Amy knew what was coming even before she said it. "If anything… what _exactly_ is 'anything' Amy?" There was no anger or upset or frustration in Lauren's voice, just the simple question. "You and Karma being more than friends? You and Karma fucking so you can both just get it out of your systems and move the hell on?" Lauren took a deep breath and finished the job. "Is 'anything' the chance that maybe you've just been holding out for Karma all this time and didn't meant it when you told Maisie you loved her?"

" _That's_ not fair," Amy snapped. "I _meant_ it. I _mean_ it. You _know_ that."

Lauren shrugged. "Maybe," she said. "But if I'm Maisie and you expect me to _know_ that? Then I've got one really big question. If you love me, then what the fuck are you still doing _there_?"

Amy stared at the screen and those tears broke through and she didn't know what to say. And neither did Karma, standing behind her, just out of sight in the bathroom door, a towel wrapped lightly around her, the water still running in the shower (ice fucking cold by then).

There were things Karma _knew_ , things she _wanted_ to know, and things she could have happily spent the _rest of her fucking life_ being utterly clueless about. But none of them mattered, not even the tiniest bit. All that mattered was the answer to that question, _Lauren's_ question.

Karma _knew_ that.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karma reflects on the call she overheard and what it means for her and Amy.

Karma climbed under the icy cold spray of her shower and waited for her heart to explode.

Metaphorically speaking, _of course_.

_Maybe_.

She couldn't really be _sure_ , not after what she'd just heard. After _that_ , Karma wasn't sure she'd ever be sure of anything ever again. After all, she'd been _sure_ Amy was asleep (sleep of the _dead_ , remember?) and now she knew _that_ wasn't true. Amy had been awake. Amy had heard it all, every word. Amy had heard her confess to hating Reagan, to wanting her love. She'd heard her admit she had wanted to it be Amy, not Liam professing love for her, heard her admit that she'd always known how she really felt.

Amy had heard her _promise_.

_I promise to love you until the day I die and you will_ never _know._

So, _clearly_ , half of that _wasn't_ true because Amy _did_ know, she knew it all.

And she didn't _care._

_That_ was what Karma _heard_ and yes, she knew that wasn't _exactly_ what Amy said but it was what she _meant_ and, really, that was all that mattered. Karma didn't focus on the words, on what Amy and Lauren had actually _said_ because that wasn't her way. That wasn't how Karma worked, not as a teenager and certainly not then. She didn't hear the good (because if Amy was having even the tiniest doubt about marrying Maisie and _lying_ to her about where she was certainly showed _doubt_ and that _was_ good, right?) And she didn't hear the struggle in Amy's voice, the way her best friend was clearly _torn_ and coming apart at the seams.

No, Karma didn't hear _that_. She heard the _doubts_. She heard the questions Amy _still_ had, even after everything she'd heard Karma reveal in the night. Karma's words, the ones she'd ripped her own heart out just to say (even if she didn't think, not even for a _second_ that Amy was awake)? Those words didn't mean a thing, not to Amy. She still had doubts, she still had questions, she still didn't _believe_.

The water poured over her and Karma shuddered as it prickled her skin. She turned her head into the spray, letting it beat down against her scalp, the sound echoing in her ears but it still wasn't loud _enough_. It still couldn't drown out all that she'd heard, all the reasons Amy and Lauren had for why Karma had 'said it'.

And all the reasons she _couldn't_ have meant it.

_Our high school fantasies_. That's what Lauren had said and Karma knew she was talking about Amy, at the time, but that was _her_ too, wasn't it? Still trapped in this dream of the perfect life, the fairy tale, except now Karma had finally realized she wanted the cardboard castle and Princess Sarcasm was her knight in (somewhat less than) shining armor.

But that was all the past and that was all the fantasy and that was as close as Karma was ever going to get. She _knew_ that now, she'd _heard_ it and it didn't matter, not even the _tiniest_ bit that Amy had never actually _said_ that. Karma knew Amy and she knew that, with _her_ , it wasn't about what she said, it never was. It was all about what she _didn't_ say. That was Amy's M.O., that was how she lied and how she told the truth and how she did everything in between. There was always something she didn't mention, something she left out.

And Karma knew all too well the words Amy had left out, the ones she hadn't said, not once, during the entire conversation.

_I love her_.

She'd talked _around_ it well enough. Amy had danced back and forth and tiptoed right up to that line, but she'd never _said it_. Karma had promised a lifetime of love and Amy had mentioned coming to NYC to 'find out'. Karma had confessed everything and Amy hadn't even told her Maisie didn't know she was there. _Clearly_ (even if Karma didn't hear it quite so clear or focus on it quite as much as maybe she should have) Amy was confused and torn and not at all sure Maisie was the one.

But she sure as _fuck_ didn't seem too sure Karma was either. Because she never said it.

_I love her_.

It was her meaning _Karma_ and not her meaning _Maisie_ because _that_ Amy had said. _That_ she'd made a point of saying, of correcting Lauren.

_That's not fair. I meant it. I mean it. You know that._

Well, maybe _Lauren_ knew that and Karma had certainly _thought_ it but now Karma _knew_ it and she knew Amy had made a point of it, had made it as clear as could be. She _loves_ Maisie and yeah, Karma knows it's possible for someone to have feelings for two people (she'd _liked_ Liam while _loving_ Amy even if she'd always _said_ it was the other way around, a decision she'd never regretted as much as she did right then in that shower) but Karma was _sure_ you couldn't _love_ two people, not the same way, not the way she loved Amy.

The human heart was only so big.

And _that_ was the key, wasn't it? _That_ was the devil in _those_ details. Amy _loves_ Maisie so Amy couldn't _love_ Karma. She had though, Amy _had_. She'd loved Karma for so long, for so many years and Karma had rejected her again and again and Liam had warned her, hadn't he? Yes, he had, but she'd ignored him, just like she'd ignored Ash and her mother and Shane and _anyone_ who even _sort of_ suggested she felt more for Amy than she let on.

She'd even ignored herself. For so fucking long - _too_ fucking long, apparently - because now Amy _loved_ her but _loves_ Maisie (present and future and till death do them fucking part) and if Karma had thought, even for a second, that she was going to somehow find a way to be OK with that, that she could live _with it_ because she couldn't live _without_ Amy?

That was before. That was before the call and Lauren and the questions but, mostly, that was before Amy had flat out fucking lied to her. And _that_ Karma knew, was _exactly_ what Amy had done. She'd lied but not like she _usually_ lied. This wasn't faking faking it or saying she was over Karma when she wasn't or acting like a kiss didn't mean anything to her.

This was ' _I am._ '

_This_ was _those_ , those two words that Amy had said, that she'd looked right in Karma's eyes and _said._ I am. I am engaged. I am going to marry Maisie (assuming I ever, you know, say yes, but Amy hadn't said _that_.) I am hers and she is mine and you _aren't_ (because, really, that was what Karma _heard_ and fuck all if it wasn't _exactly_ what Amy _said_.)

"I am," Amy had said. I. Am. Except she _wasn't_ and Karma _had_ heard that, she'd heard Amy say it. Well… technically… she'd heard _Lauren_ say it, heard Lauren ask (like only Lauren could) what it was you called someone who proposes to you, but you tell them you'll have to think about it.

_Think about it_

As clear as Karma had _thought_ 'I am' was… 'think about it' was clear as the California sky Amy lived under (and she lived in L-fucking-A so, yeah… _clear_.) Amy _wasn't_ engaged because she hadn't said yes and Karma was pretty sure that you actually had to say that one little word, that you had to 'say yes' to actually be engaged. And Karma knew (and had done a lot of homework into) these new fangled ideas of fluidity and flexibility and love is love and all that happy horseshit.

But _some_ things aren't flexible or fluid. Something are concrete. Some things are or they aren't and Amy's "engagement" _aren't_.

Aren't or isn't or what-fucking-ever it was just… _not_.

'The water soaked her hair and her skin Karma was sure her fingers were gonna be blue by the time she was done, but Amy was expecting her showered and not still dry and standing in the doorway listening to every word she said.

And 'yes' wasn't one of them.

'Yes' wasn't what Amy had said. 'Yes' was _not_ 'I'll have to think about it'. Yes was sure and thinking about it was _thinking about it_ and considering it and weighing options and _that_ was when Karma felt her knees give out and she slumped against the shower wall, the water mixing with the tears she hadn't even realized she was crying and that one word ringing in her ears.

_Options_

She was an option. She was something Amy was considering (at least Lauren seemed to think so but, again, that was something else Amy _never said_ ). Karma guesses that was something that should have made her feel better, not worse, and it _did_ , in a way. But right then and there, the only thing she felt (besides the icy sting beating down on her and _that_ was something of a relief because _that_ pain she knew she could _stop_ ) was slapped in the face.

It was bad enough that she'd been reduced to an _option_ , to a consideration, a maybe, a might be. _That_ was bad enough but now Amy knew exactly how much Karma wanted to be _more_ that that, how much she wanted to be _everything_. And _that_ hurt like nothing Karma had ever known in her life, more than every time her parents had ever favored Zen over her, more than when Liam had discovered the truth and dumped her, more than when _she'd_ discovered the truth and dumped _him_. Even more than when she'd looked in Amy's eyes and known it was true, known that her best friend had betrayed her in an almost unforgivable way.

_Fuck._ She _was_ Amy. She was Amy the night of the wedding, Amy who said 'I love you' and heard "I slept with Liam' in return and Amy who'd had to live every day _knowing_ that Karma knew and did nothing but make it worse (unintentionally, but _still_ ).

Amy _knew_ and Amy hadn't said _a word_. She hadn't _done_ a thing. Amy had let Karma crawl out of bed and disappear into the bathroom in the dark. She'd let Ash be the comforter, the one to hand Karma the cool cloth for her neck and the one to sit with her while she fucking _died_. Amy had heard every word Karma had thought she was saying to the dark and she hadn't reacted, not one little bit.

Karma crumpled to the shower floor and pulled her knees to her chest. She could _almost_ understand it. She could get, in a way, why Amy hadn't said anything _then_ , in that moment, in the dark. Karma still remembered all too well how fucking gobsmacked she'd been when Amy had come out to her, how lost she'd been in those moments. Even now, she didn't really remember saying _anything_ (she _knew_ she had and she knew it had been the _wrong_ thing but she didn't remember the words actually leaving her mouth). She imagined that was probably how Amy was in that moment.

Lost. Confused. Gobsmacked in the dark and so fucking alone. Karma got _that_.

What she didn't get, what she _couldn't_ get, was why Amy hadn't said anything _after_. Or, really, why she _had_. Why the very next words she'd said to Karma, after hearing all _that_ (and after 'hey' and 'feeling better') were _those_ two.

_I am_

Amy had heard Karma confess, she'd heard Karma reveal her most intimate truth. And then she'd fucking lied.

Karma heard Amy knocking on the bathroom door, asking if everything was OK and she'd been in there a long time and if she didn't get a move on they'd be wasting their whole day.

"We don't get many of these Karms," Amy said, her voice just loud enough to be heard over the water that, try as she might, Karma couldn't fucking drown in. "We need to make the most of them, right?"

"Right," Karma croaked. She cleared her throat and tried again. "Right." she said. "I'll be there. Just a second and I'll be right there and we'll have... " She twisted the water off with one hand and muffled a sob with the other. "We'll have the best day ever. You and me. I… _promise_."

Karma heard Amy move back into the room but she just sat there, soaked and shivering in the cold, waiting for her heart to explode. She _hoped_ it would, but she was pretty sure it _wouldn't_.

It was far too broken for _that_.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karma and Amy, both reeling from their discoveries, don't know what to do now. So they do what they've always done best.

It should have been easy.

Karma was in love with Amy. Amy, though supposedly engaged (emphasis on the _supposedly_ ) was having enough doubts that she had to _think about it_ and had hopped a flight to NYC while lying to Maisie. That, all by itself, should have been a giant neon sign in the night.

She was still in love. With _Karma_ (and _maybe_ Maisie) (OK, more than _maybe_ but that was _so_ not the point).

So it should have been easy.

They were in the same place ( _physically_ ) at the same time and they were in, more or less, the same place _emotionally_ (Karma wanted Amy and Amy was tipping in Karma's direction and, really, Amy had been tipping that direction her entire life so a full on fall - _another one_ \- was inevitable, right?). And Amy knew how Karma felt (she'd heard every word of it) and Karma knew how Amy felt (she'd heard it too) and though they both had (considerable) doubts, all it would have really taken was one of them saying it.

To the other. Out loud. In the light.

Karma slipped out of the bathroom in her towel, doing her best not to shiver (she was still _so_ cold and she doubted it had all that much to do with the water). Amy was standing by the desk, her tiny makeup bag in her hand (and yes, _Amy_ had a makeup bag and yes, she knew how to use what was in it even if Karma didn't think she needed _any_ of it to be the most beautiful thing in existence and _God_ , she was _so_ screwed.)

"Hey," Amy said.

"Hey," Karma said back.

It should have been so easy.

But it was _them_. So, like so many other things in their lives (almost everything, certainly everything _since_ 'let's be lesbians' which neither of them had ever imagined _either_ of them would take so fucking _literally_ ) it was anything but easy. Instead it hurt like fucking hell and neither of them knew (or could bring themselves to do) what had to come next so they both did what they'd always done best.

They faked it.

"So," Karma said as she rooted through her closet for something to wear. Part of her wanted something hot, something sexy, something that would make Amy forget her doubts and forget that… _Maisie_ … she had waiting on the coast. "I was thinking our usual?"

Amy turned and leaned against the desk. "So, the park and then shopping and in between as much pizza and doughnuts as I can possibly ingest?" She watched Karma as closely as she could without making it obvious that she was _watching_.

And without making it obvious that she desperately (so _fucking_ desperately) wanted that towel to fall.

Feelings aside, the one thing Amy had _never_ been able to get over was how much she _wanted_ Karma. It was past lust and desire now and had been for years. It was a fucking _ache_ one that Reagan had done nothing to ease and neither had the couple of hook-ups she'd had on campus before Maisie. The fact that all of those had been redheads with asses to die for had _nothing_ to do with _anything_.

"Sounds like s plan to me," Karma said. She bent over to retrieve a pair of sneakers from the closet (sex appeal was one thing but they were going to be walking _everywhere_ and blisters and a limp were far from a turn on). "But maybe we can go a little easier than usual on the grease intake? I'm not sure I can handle it after last night."

She could feel Amy's eyes on her and if that made her stay bent just a little longer than need be, if she _might_ have pulled the towel a little tighter and a little higher?

Amy had doubts, Karma knew that. But Amy _wanted_ her. Karma _knew_ that.

And all's fair in love and war and thinking about trying to steal back the girl who was yours first, right?

Amy laughed and hopped up on the desk, trying her best to look anywhere _but_ at Karma though it was a mostly losing battle. "Fine," she said. "But that just means more doughnuts."

Karma tossed her chosen outfit on the bed and shook her head, looking at Amy. "Like you need an excuse for _that_ ," she said and they both laughed and Karma thought _now_ was the time her heart was going to explode.

This, she thought, was them. This was comfortable but not like old sweats or soft sheets. This was comfortable like it _fit_ , like it was _right_ , like it was where they were always meant to be.

LIke they'd always been.

And that scared the fuck out of her because _what_ they'd always been, _where_ they'd always been _wasn't_ Karmy the couple. That had been the aberration, the exception to the rule, the briefest of hiccups. What they'd always been, where they'd always was right here, in this moment.

Best friends. The _best_ of friends. So best that no one else could compete, that no one else could fit. Liam hadn't been able to squeeze in there, Reagan hadn't managed it any better, and none of the guys Karma had dated or seen or fucked since she'd come to college had even stood a ghost of a chance.

But Liam and Reagan and Davis and all the others? None of them had ever had a ring. None of them had ever gotten _either_ of them to put on a fucking _rock_ (even if it was only around her neck) and none of them had ever gotten _this_ close.

None of them had ever been Maisie.

Karma stared at Amy across the room but she didn't see _her_. She saw it _all_. She saw their future, unfolding before her eyes. She saw planning the wedding, she saw Skyping with Amy to help pick flowers and dresses and design the seating chart. She saw the rehearsal, saw herself standing _beside_ Amy (a place she'd always thought was _perfect_ ) instead of _across_ from her, holding the bouquet.

It was all so clear. She saw herself helping Amy write her vows, making sure she didn't ramble on (though, of course, Amy would because _Amy_ ). Karma heard herself, standing up at the wedding with a glass of champagne in her hand and toasting Amy and Maisie (and oh, the fucking _irony_ of that was almost more than she could take) and hoping against hope that Amy didn't hear _it_ in her voice or her words.

And then the honeymoon and the life that would follow. _That's_ when it would start, she thought. It would be slow, she figured. Gradual, bit by bit, no need to rush. Maisie would already _have_ Amy, it would be _her_ ring on the blonde's finger, her name after the Raudenfeld-hyphen (and fuck all, Karma didn't even know Maisie's _last name_ ). It would be her pillows on the other side of the bed, her keys that somehow always ended up in Amy's purse, her voice calling Farrah 'Mom', her hand holding Amy's as _their_ children arrived one by one.

She'd always seen _Maisie_ as the threat. But it wasn't _her_. Maisie wouldn't need to push Karma out. Life would take care of that all its own.

"I'm gonna go change," Karma said, grabbing her clothes back up. "And then it's you. And me."

She made it to the bathroom before the tears started. Even if the closed door wasn't quite enough to block the sound of them from Amy's ears.

* * *

There was a routine to Amy's visits that Karma _usually_ found oddly comforting.

That weekend, it was a life saver.

She could stay focused on the routine, on making sure they stayed on schedule (a schedule of being _unscheduled_ was _still_ a schedule) and that would help her avoid the elephant in the room.

It was simple, really, and so very _them_. Sure, they hit the clubs or a campus rager at night. They might have been old in a lot of ways (and Karma felt older every fucking day and she swore she'd aged three or four or ten years since she'd seen Amy coming down that concourse) but they were still young and on their own and when one is young and on one's own, one parties. And they _did_ and it was always fun and they always ended up with another story.

Like the time Amy had convinced and overly handsy guy at Neuro that she and Ashyln were a couple (and made Karma feel _some kind of way_ watching the two of them _grind_ on each other on the dance floor and oh, how Davis had benefitted from _that_ after Amy left). Or the time Karma got the DJ at a house party to play _Straight Up_ and they'd cleared the dance floor and ended up teaching an entire sorority their dance.

Karma still saw people doing it at parties at least once a semester.

Or, like the time Karma had too much to drink to cover her _raging_ jealousy and _broken_ heart cause Amy was wearing some other girl's (some other _bitch's_ ) ring.

Yeah. _That_ one.

The night were one thing and they were awesome and fun and fantastic but it was the _days_ that Karma lived for. The days that stretched for hours on end and it was just her and Amy and no fucking sharesies. Karma had made a point, before Amy's first ever visit, of explaining it to Ash.

"You're welcome to go out with us every night," she said. "But Amy's days belong to _me_."

And by days she'd totally meant _days_ and not Amy's heart or soul or life or love or… _fuck it_ … she'd meant _all_ of that and she fucking knew it.

So it was the clubs and the parties at night but by day… by _day_ , Amy was like a kid in a candy store. Before that first ever visit, she had laid it out for Karma in no uncertain terms.

"There are places I _have_ to go and things I _have_ to do and things I _have_ to see and if we don't have enough time for it all," she said, "we'll just have to _make_ time."

The list was simple. A trip to Central Park, for starters. "I've seen it on TV," Amy said. "And I know it's there but I have to _see_ it cause I can't believe there's really this little patch of serenity and green and beauty - and a zoo! - in the middle of all that chaos and noise."

That first visit, Amy made Karma pack a picnic and they sat on a blanket under a tree with Amy on her back with her head in Karma's lap and when she fell asleep like that, Karma couldn't bring herself to wake her.

"And Penn Station," Amy said and Karma had to ask why (sure it was famous but it was a fucking _station_ and they had a few of those in Austin and even, she was pretty sure, in California too.) "I want to watch the people," Amy said. "And it's the perfect place to plan angles and shots and where to set the cameras up to catch everything and show the energy and the heat and the _life_."

Yes, she'd said, they had stations in Cali but not ones like _that_ and not ones with that much _personality_ and Karma had been so amazed and so absorbed in watching Amy flit around Penn looking for all those right angles and perfect spots they'd ended up spending half the day there and she didn't mind a bit.

She'd always thought watching Liam work at his 'art' was hot but Karma knew then that she hadn't known _art_ from an _asshole_ until Amy.

"And pizza," Amy said. "I need pizza."

Karma had expected _that_ one, knowing full well Amy couldn't come to NYC and _not_ eat and eat _a lot_. Every trip brought at least three stops for pizza (and at least two were always new) and at least one reminder from Karma on how to eat pizza like a proper New Yorker. And they hit every doughnut shop within spitting distance of Karma's apartment, drank more coffee than should have been legally allowed, and tried at least one new food truck per visit.

"Maisie's not gonna let me come any more," Amy said on the last visit before _the_ visit. "I'm gonna get all fat and unattractive."

_Not possible_ , Karma _thought_ , but she just laughed and bought Amy another doughnut and there was nothing _intentional_ about that at all.

There was the food and the drinks and the park and the people but the best part, every fucking time? The toys. Every visit required at least one shopping trip to the giant toy stores of NYC.

When Karma had first started college, it was FAO Schwartz (and Amy's disappointment at them not having the giant floor piano from _Big_ was so fucking adorable that Karma could have eaten her right up). By the time _that_ weekend rolled around it was the Toys 'R Us superstore and the massive Disney Store.

"You know they sell toys in Texas, right?" Karma asked (every time). "And I'm pretty sure there's at least one Disney related establishment in California." And every time, every _single time_ , Amy just gave her that look (the one Karma couldn't help but imagine Amy giving her just before she shoved Karma's head down between her thighs.)

"Yes," Amy said. "Yes and I know and I don't _care_ cause I'm not in _Texas_ or _California_ , now take me to the toys, _bitch_."

And if Karma felt a little funny at the way Amy cursing (and being a little bit of a top) turned her right the fuck on? Well, she was learning to come to terms with her desires when it came to her best friend.

Even if they made her flush bright red and try (discreetly) to rub her thighs together in the middle of a NYC sidewalk.

"Can we just go straight there?" Amy asked on the morning of _that_ visit. "We can grab food later, I really need to make sure I have time to get something _good_ for Elliot."

Karma nodded, not that she'd ever refuse Amy, but she knew if the blonde was passing up food then it must be important. "How's she handling everything?" Karma asked. "The wedding and all, I mean."

Amy's newest stepfather, the one Farrah was off cruising with _that_ weekend had come as part of a package deal. Like Bruce before him, he'd brought Amy a new step-sibling but _unlike_ Lauren, this one wasn't a teenager with attitude. Her name was Elliot and she was five when Amy first met her and it was love at first fucking sight.

"Good, I think," Amy said. "We skyped last weekend and she was pretty upbeat about the whole thing. I know she always hoped her parents would get back together, but…"

Karma nodded and didn't comment on the tone in Amy's voice, the slight wistfulness she always got when she started thinking about what might have been if Farrah and Hank could have ever gotten their acts together.

"Speaking of my dad," Amy said cause she knew Karma _knew_ that she had been speaking of Hank, in her own way. "He came out to see me last month."

Karma stopped dead in the middle of the street and Amy had to double back to pull her out of traffic. "What?" she asked. "He came to California? _Hank_? He actually came _to you_?"

Amy nodded, her arm still slung through Karma's and neither of them mentioned it or made any move to change it as they continued walking. "Yeah," she said. "He said he was 'in the neighborhood' but I think my mom got on his case about not having met Maisie yet."

Of course. _Maisie_.

"Oh," Karma said. "So they met?" Amy nodded as they waited at the corner for the crowd to cross to the next block. The walk to Toy 'R Us ( Amy _missed_ FAO Schwartz) and the Disney Store took fucking forever. "Did they, you know, get along?"

Karma really hoped the _hope_ in her voice sounded like she hoped they _did_ and not that Hank had pulled Amy aside before he left and told her that she could do so much better and, in fact, had _done_ so much better even if it was faking it, but maybe now it wouldn't be?

"They did," Amy said with, maybe, a little _less_ excitement than Karma would have expected her to have. "They got along really well. Dad even offered to take us both with him on assignment next summer. He's headed to Brazil or Belize or… something with a 'B'..." She paused again at the next corner. "And then Maisie asked permission...I guess he _loved_ that."

"Permission?" Karma asked as the crowd moved and she got jostled loose from Amy's arm.

"Yeah," Amy said, waiting for her at the edge of the curb. "She asked for permission to propose and she asked my mom too. Even asked Lauren for her blessing, like _that_ would matter."

"And they all said yes," Karma said and Amy nodded and then kept walking, the bustle of the crowd drowning out Karma's voice. "They said yes. So why didn't _you?_ "


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one's a bit longer (like double) and... stuff... happens. A little funny, a little flashback, a bit of smut. Reviews, comments, and 'how could you?' always welcome!

In the end (not the _end_ end but certainly the beginning of it, the real first step on the slippery slope to sleeping together) when Karma found herself in a NYC alley with her back pressed against a brick building wall with Amy's hands on _her_ hips and Amy's tongue in _her_ mouth, Karma had only one coherent thought.

Maisie had no one to blame but herself.

If she'd left well enough alone, if she'd stayed quiet and out of sight out of mind, if she'd just _never called_ (not Farrah and certainly not _Amy)_ then maybe the dam would've held. Maybe the leaks and the trickles and the the little dents and dings would've never amounted to more than that.

But Maisie didn't and they didn't and in the end, the beginning of it anyway, the dam didn't hold and Karma kissed Amy and Amy kissed back and that was how it all went to hell.

Things were going fine before that. OK. Maybe not _fine_ , maybe not what any sane reasonable, or logical person would've called fine (but when were either of them _any_ of those?) . But it was their version of fine, the version where no one says how they really feel and every word and every sentence is loaded with… hiding.

That's what it all was. Hiding. Meanings hiding behind hints hiding behind half truths (and the occasional outright lie) and all that hiding only makes them wonder.

Did she mean _that_?

Did she mean it like _I think_ she meant it or did she mean it like _she_ meant it and _I'm_ just reading meaning into _her_ meanings that aren't really there?

So, yeah, it wasn't _fine,_ not by any stretch of anyone's imagination, not even Karma's. It wasn't fine and it wasn't normal and it wasn't going to be fine or normal or anything but what it was (misery and pain and a distance growing between them that Karma could fucking _see_ ) until one of them said _something._ Something they meant and in that way they _both_ understood and left no fucking _doubt_ and opened the can of worms they'd so far kept a super tight lid on.

Karma tried. She tried to say _something._ Really , she did.

_They all said yes. So why didn't you?_

She hadn't meant to say it (and there was that whole meaning things, _again_ , and Karma knew one day she was going to have to say something and mean it _and_ mean to say it or else… well… or else Amy would marry someone who wasn't _her_ and that seemed a lot less far fetched and a lot less far off than it had just a couple days ago) . And this time she hadn't meant to say it but she _did_ say it but stupid traffic and stupid people and stupid NYC had covered her words and buried them down deep under passerby chit chat and hustle and bustle and Amy just kept walking as Karma stood there, the crowd flowing around her like a steam around a rock.

_Fucking rock._

Once Karma got past the shock of those words actually _coming out,_ she started to think that maybe that was _it_. Maybe that was the dam bursting, the plug being yanked from the drain, that last proverbial straw. Maybe that moment (even unheard) was the kick in the ass she needed and the point where it all finally got to be too much and she couldn't hold it in anymore.

And then Amy paused on the sidewalk and looked back at her. "You coming?" she asked. "The toys aren't going to play with themselves "

There it was. Opportunity presenting itself, leaping into the middle of the NYC sidewalk and waving hello! This was her chance. This was her moment.

Karma hustled through the intersection and caught up to Amy who bumped her shoulder with her own. "What happened back there? Forget how to walk?"

_I was just so stunned that Maisie asked your family and they said yes when_ clearly _they should have known better since you couldn't even give the girl an answer and what's up with that, Amy? You said you you were engaged but you're not and you're here instead of with her and why is_ that?

"Sorry, " Karma said. "Thought I had something in my shoe. "

Amy nodded and slung her arm back through Karma's and they soldiered on headed for the toys and Karma cursed her total lack of follow though, her complete inability to actually pull the fucking trigger and just smiled weakly at Amy's jokes and listened half heartedly to her discussion of which _Star Wars_ toys she wanted to get Elliot, all the while bemoaning that fucking damn in her head, the one she was sure now would _never_ burst.

And if not for a phone call from Amy's not fiancee maybe it never would have.

So, in the end (or the beginning of it), it really was Maisie's own damn fault. She should have just left well enough alone.

Even Karma had learned _that_ lesson.

* * *

In the end (still not _the_ end but maybe a little less the beginning) when she found herself pressing Karma hard against the building and grinding her hips against hers and kissing her _back_ (because Karma had kissed first and Amy knew that was the _only_ way that would have ever happened) Amy knew she had only herself to blame.

It was all her own fault. It was all on her that she was standing there kissing Karma (and fuck all, Karma had learned to kiss since high school not that she was ever _bad_ but this was a whole other level or maybe, Amy thought, it was just that they were both finally into it and this is what it always would have been like and if _that's_ true, then thank God they never did this back then. She would have fucking died) and that was supposed to be the happiest and hottest moment of her life.

And it was.

Amy felt such joy and fulfillment and completion at _finally_ being in that moment that she knew she'd never have adequate words to describe it to Lauren later.

And as for hot…

Amy knew Karma had never been with a girl and she hadn't been with _many_ herself but she knew enough ( _more_ than enough if you asked some people) that she was already thinking of every single thing she was going to do with Karma.

Every single thing she was going to do _to_ Karma. And then teach Karma to do to her.

Assuming she could ever stop kissing her and that she could, eventually, trust herself enough to let go of Karma's hips (because she really doubted Karma wanted to be stripped, spun around to face the wall, and then _fucked_ right there on a NYC street) and that either of them would be able to walk back to the apartment under their own power.

Amy was really unsure on that last one. Her knees were already weak.

It _was_ happy and it was hot and it made Amy's heart swell two sizes that day.

And it made her stomach clench and both those sizes crack and break and she knew Karma was going to feel the tears on her cheeks soon and that would be the end of that and that would be good because if it went on much longer Amy really did think she might die.

And not in the good way.

And all that was her own fault, had been her fault since the moment she'd seen the ring and frozen and freaked and been pretty much every proposer's worst nightmare.

Ever since she'd said I'll think about it, since she took the ring and she put it on a chain instead of a finger. She'd taken the ring and left Maisie's apartment (which, let's be real, was _their_ apartment because Amy hadn't spent more than one night a month in her own place since Maisie had moved in) and headed back to campus. She went straight to the library (do not pass go, do not collect an actual fiancée) where it was quiet and isolated and she could hunker down at a corner table with her laptop

And book a ticket.

She was the one who ran. She didn't walk and yes, she did fly ( _technically)_ but the flying was really just running and running wasn't _just_ running. The running didn't matter, it was the running _to_ that counted.

She was the one who said 'I'll have to think about it' ( _have_ to, not just will, _have to_ ) and took the ring and put it on a chain and ran straight to Karma. And she was the one who wasn't surprised by that at all. It was like Amy'd always known she'd do it, eventually, and she didn't know what that said about her but she was sure it was nothing good.

Amy knew she only had herself to blame because she was the one who had lied. She was the one who had gone back to the apartment ( _their_ apartment and she fucking knew it) and found Maisie there, sitting on the tiny balcony (in the exact spot she'd been in when she asked and when Amy said ' _have to_ ' and then run like a fool) and she was the one who'd seen the hope in Maisie's eyes.

She knew _that_ hope. It was the same hope that had flickered through her eyes when Karma had shown up outside her house the night after the wedding with her guitar in her hand. The same hope that had danced across her face so many times. The same hope from the threesome, from 'we're soulmates', from the pool kiss, and even from 'you can tell me that kiss meant something'.

The same hope that had broken her heart over and over again and the _same_ hope that had just booked a flight to NYC.

Some lessons, Amy knew, took _forever_ to learn.

Maisie looked up at her with that same hope, the hope that 'I'll have to think' had turned into 'I'm _so_ sorry, I was _so_ stupid, _of course_ I'll marry you' (in like two hours) and Amy felt like such shit she couldn't stand it . It was almost enough to make her say yes on the spot.

Almost.

But almost isn't enough and Amy knew it and that had everything to do with that plane ticket and even more to do with why she sat down across from Maisie and couldn't look her in the eye and that was enough, _more_ than enough to wipe that hope away.

"I'm sorry," she said.

Maisie shifted in her chair and pulled her feet back, anything to be as far from Amy as possible and all Amy wanted to do was go to her and hold her and kiss her and beg her to explain how she could love someone who was so _clearly_ a _massive_ fuck up.

But Maisie didn't _need_ holding or kissing ( _wanted_ might have been another story) but she did need some clarity. "Sorry because you still don't know?" she asked. "Or sorry because you do?"

And there was that hope again. That hope that _screamed_ 'please please please still be confused because if you're not and you're saying sorry…'

"Sorry for hurting you," Amy said. She wanted to scoot her chair closer and take Maisie's hand but she was pretty sure that was bad form in these situations. "And sorry that I can't… say yes… _yet_."

She emphasized the 'yet' and even if she didn't know for sure that it _was_ a 'yet' and not a 'never', Amy figured she owed Maisie that much. Even if she _also_ knew that owing wasn't the best way to think of it at all.

"It's fine," Maisie said, as if they both didn't know it was anything but fine. "You're not ready. I jumped the gun. Totally my fault. It's… _fine_."

Bad form or not (and since when, Amy wondered, had she _ever_ given a fuck about form), Amy pulled her chair close and tried not to let her heart break at the way Maisie pushed back in her own, like she'd be perfectly willing to crawl through the back of it just to get away, and just that twitch, that tiny little movement was enough to keep Amy's hands in her own lap.

"May? Baby? Look at me, _please_." Maisie pulled her eyes from the table and looked at Amy but it only lasted a second before Maisie was looking past her and around her and over her and _everywhere_ but at her. "This isn't you, it's -"

"Please don't say 'it's me'," Maisie said softly. "Just don't…" She did look at Amy then and Amy could see her knuckles go white as she gripped the armrest of the chair, forcing herself to hold eye contact. "Just be honest," she said. "It _is_ me. I'm not the one you want. I mean… you _want_ me… just… not like _that_."

_Just not like that_

There was never a moment in her life when Amy _really_ hated Karma. But if there was? That might well have been it.

"I was stupid," Maisie said. "I knew you hadn't had many relationships and I _knew_ you weren't a U-hauler. And I thought, after two years… I thought we were there. I thought _you_ were there and I…"

Amy understood. She'd thought she was there too. And maybe… fuck.. she didn't _know_.

"You don't have to say you'll think about it," Maisie said. "You don't have to be nice and fake it to spare my feelings. You can just say no."

_Fuck_ form and _fuck_ confusion and _fuck_ Maisie pulling away, Amy took the other girl's hands in her and clutched them tight. "I know I _can_ ," Amy said. "I could have when you asked or I could now. But 'could' and 'can' _aren't_ 'want to' or 'going to'." Maisie stared at their hands and Amy knew (she fucking _knew_ ) what Maisie was feeling. That refusal, that stubborn 'I just won't' avoidance of hope. "I love you," she said and Maisie's eyes shut. "And 'I'll think about it doesn't mean no and it doesn't mean I don't and it doesn't mean I _won't_."

"Then what _does_ it mean?"

Amy let out a slow ragged breath. It means I'm a fucking idiot who can't let go, she _thought_ but she said, "It means I can't. Not just yet. Not until…" She thought of the plane ticket sitting in her email and the charge on her credit card and the call she had to make to tell Karma she was coming.

"It means I have to go," she said. "I have to go home," she _lied_.

"You're leaving?"

"Not right now," Amy said. "Next weekend, when we're on break from classes. I'm gonna go home for a couple days. I… _need_ to." She'd planned it all out, known exactly the lie she was going to spin.

"I get it," Maisie said. "You need to see your mom." That time it was her that squeezed Amy's hands. "I thought of it when I asked her… you know.. for permission? How many men had asked your Nana for her daughter's hand? You Raudenfelds don't do so well with the whole till death do you part bit."

Amy _wanted_ to die. It was the exact story she'd cooked up, right down to the death do us part line but Maisie didn't just _buy_ it, she _knew_ it because Maisie knew _her_. She knew her and she loved her and she was willing to fucking _wait for her_ and all Amy could do was run, run to NYC, run after something that didn't exist.

Run after Karma. _Again_.

"I understand if you want me to stay at my place for a few days -"

Maisie's lips swallowed her words and Amy moaned against her as she curled out of her own chair and into Amy's lap. "No," she mumbled against Amy's lips, even as she peppered them with feverish (and desperate and Amy _so_ got that and it broke her and soaked her all at once) kisses Maisie tipped her head back. "Unless you want to?"

Amy thought again of the ticket and the charge and the call and felt the ring on the chain bouncing against her chest and she _hated_ herself and she didn't know if it was more for what she was doing or what she was about to do.

She wrapped her arms under Maisie's legs and lifted, settling the other girl on the edge of the small coffee table between the chairs, her hands slipping to the waist of Maisie's shorts, already working the button and then the zipper and sliding inside and Maisie moaned against her skin and bit down on Amy's shoulder as the blonde dipped one finger inside her even as she dropped to her knees.

" _This_ is where I want to be," Amy said, staring up at her as Maisie tried to breathe. She slipped her hand free and grabbed the sides of Maisie's shorts, pulling them off and tossing them aside without a second look. "Right _here_ ," she moaned, leaning in and swiping her tongue across her girlfriend's clit and Maisie moaned again and tangled her hands in Amy's hair and her thighs clenched around Amy's head and there on the balcony and then later in their bed and then again the next morning… it was almost enough to convince Amy it would all be OK.

Almost.

But if almost was enough, she would have never found herself in an alley pressing herself against Karma, the angry and panicked and heartbroken phone call from her _girlfriend_ all but forgotten.

* * *

The call came in the Disney store, in the _Star Wars_ section, just as Amy was holding up a tiny turquoise Rey tee shirt.

"You think Elliot would like this?" she asked and Karma, lost in thought about what she _didn't_ do and what she _should_ have done and what she, maybe, still had time to do, nodded absently, forgetting that this was _Amy_ , who could read her nods like most people could read the alphabet.

Amy hung the shirt back on the rack and ignored the buzzing of her phone in her pocket. "She _loves_ Rey," she said. "I think my mom's already taken her to see _Force Awakens_ five times and since my mother wouldn't know Vader from Van Halen, that's saying something." Karma nodded again and murmured her agreement, idly toying with a plastic lightsaber. "But I think it's just cause she has the hots for the guy at the ticket counter. I'm pretty sure he's gonna be step-pops number six. You know, once he graduates high school."

"That's great," Karma said, smiling. "I'm sure that'll be awesome for her."

Amy sighed and, nof for the first time, wondered if it was _that_ time, if they'd finally reached _that_ point, the moment when the weight of the secrets they were both lugging around had finally dragged them down so far they couldn't even _see_ Karma and Amy anymore, much less _be_ them.

She ignored the phone again and took a step closer to Karma. "Maybe it's time we head back," Amy said. "I think… we… um… there's probably some talking we should…"

Her phone buzzed _again_ , so fucking loudly, and Karma stared at her pocket. "You should probably get that," she said, suddenly focused back on reality again, her mind already plugging the leaks in the dam that had threatened to drown her in the street. "It might be important."

"And it might be a wrong number," Amy said. She didn't know who it was but she knew who it _wasn't_. Her mother was at sea (literally, for once) and not likely to waste the money to make the call. She _just_ talked to Lauren, Shane hadn't called in months, and Maisie had agreed to give her some time. Some space. A chance to think.

Amy didn't want to _think_ about _that_.

"Karma," she said, but the redhead was already making her way to a display of _Star Wars_ figures, her eyes scanning the collection for a Rey or that cute little rolling robot all the kids loved.

"It's so cool, don't you think?" she asked, plucking a Han Solo from the first row. "Making the movie with a female lead. Gives all the little girls hope, you know?" She set Han back on his hook. "Hope's a good thing, I think."

"Usually," Amy said. And sometimes hope was a fucking knife poised right over your heart, teasing you with the chance that it _wouldn't_ cut you when you always fucking _knew_ it would.

Her phone buzzed again and then again and then once more. Short quick bursts. Texts, not calls.

"What the _fuck_ …" she muttered, tugging the offending gadget from her pocket and checking the display.

Six missed calls (more than she'd even _felt_ ). All from Maisie. Three texts, also from her girlf...fiance… _her_.

_Answer the phone._

_Pick up Amy._

_I know you're with_ her _. Answer the fucking phone._

Karma turned to see Amy standing there, the color gone from her face and her hand shaking so bad she nearly dropped the phone. She watched as Amy's eyes darted everywhere, like she was running scenarios in her mind, trying to work out the quickest escape route or the most plausible line of bullshit she could conjure out of thin air.

"Amy?"

Amy's head dropped and her hand shot to her mouth, clamping down on the cry-slash-sob-slash-curse-slash _you had to know this was going to fucking happen cause it's_ you that threatened to come bubbling out.

"She knows," Amy finally said, so quietly Karma barely heard. And then Amy looked her right in the eye and Karma put two and two together and every lie, every bit of bullshit, every well practiced moment of faking it and not finishing the fucking thing out of self preservation hung in the air between them and it was all so fucking _clear_.

"You know," Karma said.

" _You_ know," Amy replied. And she held up the phone, buzzing again in her hand. "And so does she." She turned away and answered the call and drifted off into the store, like she was sinking beneath the waves and Karma wanted to reach out, to give her something to hold onto, a life preserver to pull her back to shore.

She stood there, not moving, because she knew. There was nothing she could do to help Amy.

They'd both done enough already.

* * *

Karma found her underneath Cinderella's castle.

She started to say something but, for maybe the first time in her life, Karma's words failed her and she'd heard just enough of the call (and that seemed to be something of a pattern) and Amy's face told her the rest.

Maisie knew. And Maisie wasn't happy and Karma shook her head because _wasn't happy_ was about the most ridiculous understatement of all time and as much as she maybe didn't like ( _hated_ ) Maisie, she understood how the girl felt.

Karma knew all too well what it was like to lose Amy to another girl. Even if she wasn't _sure_ that was what was happening here.

But there was that hope thing again…

She didn't know _exactly_ what Maisie knew, but Karma had a pretty good idea. She was sure Maisie knew Amy wasn't in Austin, that she wasn't with her mother and her family, and that she was, of all places, with _her_.

And if Karma could only imagine that Maisie said it like that, like _her_ , like a disease or a murderer or something that got stuck on the underside of your life and you couldn't cut the fucker off without losing too much blood and everything you loved in the first place?

Well, this was one time Karma was pretty sure her imagination was spot fucking on.

She sat down next to Amy beneath the cardboard castle but kept a… respectful wasn't the word… _safe_ … distance. Not letting their hips or legs or shoulders bump, no comforting hand on the arm, no head resting on the shoulder. There might be time for all that (and maybe _more_ ) but that was later and this was now and this was Amy, her best friend (and love of her life and that was for _later_ too) and she was in pain.

And for once, Karma thought, it wasn't because of _her_.

At least not completely.

She stared at the floor, at some spot between their feet, and tried to understand what she was feeling. Amy and Maisie were fighting. Amy and Maisie might have just broken up. Amy was sitting under a castle in the middle of the Disney Store with her and she was fucking _broken_ but Karma was _there_. She was there to pick up the pieces instead of being the one to shatter Amy into them.

Karma knew she should have been… something. Maybe not _happy_ , cause she would never take pleasure in Amy's pain. And maybe not relieved because just because Amy and Maisie weren't Amy _and_ Maisie anymore ( _maybe_ ), that didn't mean _she_ and Amy were going to be… _them_ … any time soon. So maybe those particular emotions were off the table. But Karma knew she should be _something_.

But she _wasn't_. She wasn't a single fucking thing. She was as empty as Amy looked and she felt like the wind hadn't just been knocked out of her but like it had been sucked straight from her lungs and there was nothing left for her to breathe and Karma didn't know what the _fuck_ that meant.

And Amy wasn't exactly _helping_.

The blonde kept staring at her phone, clicking the lock screen on and off, on and off, on and off, like somehow it would change, like every click had the chance to make it all so different and Karma could kinda get the need to feel like _that_ right then.

She watched the pictures flip back and forth. The lock screen was them, but not just _them_ , it was _all_ of them. Her and Amy and Lauren and Shane and even Liam and Felix. It was her graduation party, the last time Karma could remember them all being together and she knew it was Amy's favorite picture because it was the only time she ever got her, Lauren, and Shane to pose together and look like they didn't mind.

The home screen… Karma didn't like thinking in metaphors (even though she did so fucking often) but the home screen was _exactly_ that. It was _home_. Amy and Maisie on the tiny little balcony outside their apartment (and Karma didn't give a single fuck whose name was on the lease, it was _theirs_ ). Maisie had moved in eight months after she and Amy became a couple and Amy had followed her and just never left.

"She picked it for me," Amy said quietly, staring down at the picture. "I told her I loved that balcony. That I could see us out there on Sunday mornings having breakfast and drinking those God awful soy latte things she loves in just our jammies and…"

Amy pinched the bridge of her nose between her fingers and squeezed her eyes shut. Karma didn't move, she didn't speak, she barely fucking _breathed_.

"She surprised me with it the next week," Amy said. "She'd signed the lease and even started moving a few things but the first thing she did, the very _first_ fucking thing she did was to go out and buy that little table and those two little chairs. She stayed up the entire night before she showed it to me, painting them and stenciling our initials on them."

Amy tipped the phone so Karma could see the two chairs. She couldn't really make out the one as Amy and Maisie were _sharing_ it, but she could see the bright blue 'A' on the other one. It was silly and dorky and ridiculously childish and _exactly_ the sort of thing Amy would love.

"It was just so goofy and sweet and so… _her_ ," Amy said. "Just so…" Her hand drifted to her shirt and Karma watched as she clutched the ring though the fabric. "She did that," Amy said as she gripped that fucking rock even tighter. "She did _that_ and I did _this_. I fucking did _this_."

A few mothers and daughters drifted around the castle (it was a major photo op for the tourists) and Karma got the sense they were overstaying their welcome.

"Amy," she said quietly. "Maybe we should talk about this, you know, somewhere else." Karma smiled weakly at one mother who was watching them with a disapproving eye. "Maybe we should just head back to my apartment and we can -"

"And we can _what_?" Amy asked and there was a _tone_ to it that Karma had never heard and there was that air getting sucked out of her feeling again. "What can we do, Karma? Hmmm?"

"Amy…"

Amy stood, her phone still clutched in her hand and her cheeks still wet with tears she was still _crying_. "I know," she said. "Maybe we can keep a few more secrets. That's a good start, don't you think?"

Karma side eyed the crowd that was gathering. This was _so not_ the happiest place on Earth.

"Oh!" Amy snapped. "Or maybe you can get hammered again because that's the only way you can be around me. Or, _maybe_ , you can spill your guts in the middle of the night again cause, you know, that worked so well the _first time_."

Karma bowed her head and didn't even try to fight back. It wasn't the time or the place and, really, Amy had a point. At least a little.

"Yes," Amy said. "Why don't we do _that_ , Karma? Why don't we go back to your place and then we can climb into bed together and while I'm trying not to _die_ because I just ruined _everything_ that mattered to me for someone who supposedly will love me till I _do_ die but can't even _tell_ me, you can hold me and console me and remind me of everything I had with _her_ that I wanted with _you_. And then? When my tears are dried and there's hope in my soul again, you can do what you do best."

Karma took a deep breath before she asked but she _did_ ask. She _had_ to. "And what's that?"

"You can break my heart. _Again_."

Amy was out from under the castle and down the escalator and out the front door before Karma had a chance to even… fuck it… before she had a chance to check to make sure she was still breathing, to make sure the pieces of her heart weren't all over the Disney Store floor, before she had a chance to shoot a dirty look at the mother whispering to her daughter about 'deviants'.

And then Karma did what it was _she_ thought she did best.

She went after Amy.

She caught her two blocks down, grabbing her by the arm and dragging her off the sidewalk into an alley and spinning her around. There was rage in Amy's eyes and Karma was pretty sure hers looked much the same and she didn't know if she wanted to hit her or kiss her.

And she came so fucking _close_ to doing both.

"You... how… _your_ heart…" Karma saw a flicker of concern in Amy's eyes cause she _was_ flailing and stammering and flushed and she probably _did_ look like she was stroking out. "You know what, Amy?" Karma got right up in her best friend's face, pushing up on her tip-toes to make up the slight height difference and see right into her eyes.

And the dam, the one she'd held together so fucking long, through Liam and Davis and the others and Reagan and Maisie and fucking Felix and _motherfucker_ it was _too fucking much_ and it all broke.

" _Fuck you_ ," Karma said.

Then she kissed her. She took Amy's face between her hands and crashed her lips into the blonde's and she might have crushed their teeth together and there might have been blood and Karma didn't give even the tiniest of fucks because _she_ was kissing _Amy_ and she wasn't faking and she wasn't drunk and she wasn't putting on a show for anyone and she was shaking and she couldn't breathe but she wouldn't stop even if she fucking _died_.

And then Amy was kissing her back and there was a tongue running along her lips and hands on her hips and she was being backed up and pressed against the alley wall and Karma didn't care if it was an alley or her room or the back of her parent's van or the halls of fucking Hester.

It was her. It was Amy. And that, for the moment (the very _long_ moment she hoped would never end) was _enough_.

And if _that_ moment had never ended? Maybe it would have been.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We're getting close to endgame here, folks, I think. Unless I keep going past where I planned... oh... and don't hate me after this one.

When it was all said and done and Karma looked back on it, she knew _that_ was the moment.

When she was _able_ to look back on it, on that weekend, on that day, on that _moment_ , the one where she was overcome with anger and passion and rage and sadness and… _Amy_ … when it was all finally out in the open (or whatever the hell passed for open with them) and she grabbed Amy's face and kissed her as if her life depended on it?

Karma knew.

When she was finally able to think about it again later ( _much_ later) when it wasn't so fresh and it wasn't so raw and she could think about something other than undoing it all because it was ( _clearly_ ) the biggest mistake of her life, Karma knew it was that moment. It wasn't 'I'm engaged', it wasn't confessing in the middle of the night, it wasn't overhearing Amy and Lauren and realizing the truth.

It was kissing Amy in the street.

That was what fucked it all up.

Which, when she was able to think about it (and really _think_ and not just _feel_ which is what got her in trouble in the first place), Karma realized that was pretty much (as in _exactly_ ) like every other kiss she and Amy had ever shared. Right back to the beginning, right back to the assembly and 'if we were faking would I do this' (the answer to which was, of _course_ , yes and _yes_ , Karma could see the irony there as clear as a fucking bell.)

Karma remembered it, remembered _saying_ 'woah' but _meaning_ ' _woah_ ' except she didn't know she meant _that_ at the time (and yes, she knows _that's_ bullshit but even later, even when it's all said and _done_ and she's in Davis' bed and her tears are mostly dried, she's got to cling to _something_ so it may as well be _that_.)

Technically, it wasn't her _first_ kiss. That was… _him_. But it was in front of the school and it was in front of _him_ (and later, when it's all said and done, she refuses to sully _that_ memory with his _name_ because somehow this is _all_ his fault even if she knows that's not even a little true) and there was confetti and cheering and Lauren fuming and Penelope clapping and there was Amy.

There was _Amy._ Amy with her arms around Karma's waist and her hands on Karma's back and Karma can still (even when it's said and done) feel the rough fabric of Amy's sweater against her arms and the softness of her lips and she _swears_ the beating of Amy's heart against her chest.

But that might just be her own.

When Karma looked back on it, on _that_ moment instead of that _other_ one (the one that fucked everything up, the one she can't think about without finding herself soaking wet _and_ sobbing and somehow that seems… appropriate), _that's_ what sticks out to her. Not the cheers or the crowd or Shane or Lauren or _him_.

Amy. Just… _Amy._

And, of _course_ , she thought later (so _much_ later, when she could almost smile about it), _of course_ there was Amy. Amy was there for _everything_. She was there for Karma's first crush and Karma's first real fight with her mother and for the death of Karma's Gam-Gam and the first time Karma cried over a boy who _wasn't_ her fuckwit brother.

Amy was always there so of course Amy would be there for Karma's first kiss even if it wasn't _really_ her first, though when Karma thought about it later, she always thought of _that_ kiss, of Amy and the assembly and 'woah' and 'I know', as her first. Because it was. It was her first _real_ kiss, the first one that meant _anything_ because every kiss with Amy meant _everything_.

Like the one in _that_ moment. On the street, pressed up against a brick wall with Amy's hands on her, sliding beneath her shirt, fingers burning against her skin. The kiss that made her moan as Amy ground against her and Karma let her own hands wander in ways she'd never dared before and she _touched_ Amy. Not in new places ( _mostly_ ) but in new _ways_. Not in comforting caresses or friendly holds or goofing tickles.

Karma's hands ghosted over Amy's body, teasing and testing and finding the spots that even there, in public, in front of so many nosy and busybody and (probably) turned-the-fuck-on eyes, would make the blonde shudder and grind against her harder and bring sounds growling out of Amy that Karma swore she didn't know anyone could make.

And that she desperately wanted Amy to make again and again and _again_.

The assembly had been their first kiss and there'd been the one in the quad and the one at the threesome that should've been a twosome and the one in the pool but that kiss was their _first_ in so many ways that those others never were and Karma knew it meant _everything_.

And when she looked back on it later ( _much much much_ later) and begged Davis to hold her and to _just_ hold her and not ask any _stupid fucking questions_ , Karma knew what _that_ meant.

That kiss did mean everything. The end of everything.

* * *

When she'd thought about it, and she'd thought about it _a lot_ (more times than she liked to admit), Amy had never imagined it would be like _that_.

She'd kissed before. She'd kissed _Karma_ before and she'd kissed girls before and even a couple boys (because Liam and Oliver and Felix were nothing if not _boys_ ). She'd kissed Reagan and she'd kissed Maisie and there might have been a couple others, in between, and maybe it had been more than a couple and maybe (even if she didn't admit it _out loud_ and especially not to _Karma_ ) Amy even remembered their names and the feel of their lips and maybe even the ways they'd made her moan and scream (and the way she'd felt when she did the same to them) but none of them, not a single fucking one had ever been like _that_.

None of them had been like Karma.

And that made sense, in a way. None of them, not Reagan and not even Maisie, had _been_ Karma. She didn't have history with them, she didn't have a lifetime of connection and a lifetime of pent up… _everything..._ and she hadn't spent weeks and months and fucking _years_ wondering what it would be like.

And then, on a NYC street she found out what it _was_ like and it wasn't like she'd imagined. Not even a little.

When she'd thought about it (and she'd thought about it so many times since that first kiss in the assembly) Amy had never thought of it like _that_ , like how it actually _happened_. She'd never imagined people going by and car horns and sirens in the distance and the unmistakable feeling of being _watched_ and the even more unmistakable feeling of _not fucking caring_.

Amy had never, not in her wildest dreams or even in those quiet moments of loneliness before Reagan had come along and their relationship distracted her, when she was home alone and all she could think about was what Karma was off doing with _him_ and how it should've been _her_ and she saw it all in her mind and she couldn't _not_ touch herself and imagine it was Karma's hands and Karma's fingers and _fuck all_ even _then_ it had never been like it _was_ , there on that street.

It had never been that hot. It had never been that passionate and that was probably because Amy had never known _how_ to imagine _that_ , had never known what it could be like until after Reagan (and maybe after those others she might remember) and then Maisie. Before _them_ , she'd only had love to imagine with. Sweet and tender and yes, so fucking _good_ but nothing like raw and angry and passionate and… and… and…

Never with that much pain.

Amy had never imagined it _hurting_ like it did. She'd never imagined kissing Karma ( _kissing_ her) and feeling that faint (or not so faint, really) pain in her chest. The pain of breaking up with Maisie even though, truthfully, she wasn't even entirely sure they _had_ and she wasn't entirely sure how she felt about _that_ because, really, all she was entirely sure of was Karma's tongue in her mouth, swirling back and forth and over hers and then darting back and teasing Amy's into chasing and then repeating the whole thing in Karma's mouth and Karma's hands sliding over her back and down to her ass and one coming around to her front and just barely, just floating over her breast and… _fuck_ …

Amy had never thought about it like _that_. She'd never thought about it as _sex_ (because still clothed and in public and not actually touching anything _yet_ or not, it was _so_ fucking sex) and she'd never thought of it as hot and dirty and she'd never thought anyone could make her cum with a kiss and hand and brushing of fingers and Karma hadn't _yet,_ but it was so _headed there_.

And when she thought about it right then and there, because that not so faint pain wouldn't let her _not_ think, Amy wondered how. How had she never thought of it like that. How had she never imagined kissing Karma could be so fucking hot and so fucking perfect and so much more than she'd _ever_ imagined and still _hurt_ so fucking _bad?_

She couldn't understand how she'd missed it because it made so much sense.

Kissing Karma had _always_ been good. And it had always been so much fucking pain that Amy couldn't imagine anything hurting worse.

Until the next time.

* * *

Karma didn't want to stop.

It wasn't that the kiss was that good (though it _was_ ) or that she loved the way Amy felt against her (though she _did_ ) or that the thought of the people walking by and seeing them like that turned her on (though it _did_ and she was so going to have to talk to Ash about that later.)

It wasn't any of those or, really, it wasn't _just_ any of those. It was all those _and_ it was something much simpler and much clearer and much more obvious.

Karma _knew_.

She knew what would happen when they stopped.

When she talked about it later, to Ash and to Davis and _to Maisie_ , Karma was always struck by how precise, how accurate her _knowing_ was. It was like she'd written the script and then typed it up and then edited and fine tuned it and gotten all the details just _so_.

Just so _Amy_.

She _knew_ Amy would be the one to pull back first because she was the one with the _reason_ to, even if that reason was on the opposite end of the country and that reason might not ever want to see her again. But that reason was still _there_ , between them and not just in that fucking _rock_ dangling between Amy's breasts.

So when Amy started to pull away, Karma held on. Her arms tightened around Amy and her hands fisted the blonde's shirt and she deepened the kiss, her lips finding Amy's tongue and sucking on it gently, the way she'd already learned the other girl loved, and Karma _held the fuck on_.

And it worked.

Just like Karma knew it would.

She knew Amy was at war. She knew her best friend so well, so inside and out that she could _feel_ the conflict, the battle between everything she'd ever _wanted_ and everything she _had_ and Karma knew she could win that battle, even if for just a moment.

It was the war she wasn't so sure about.

But Karma knew Amy would still pull back, she knew she'd slip and fall back into the kiss and let Karma capture her bottom lip with her teeth and nip and tug and and moan and Amy would sink back into her, pressing her up against the wall again, her hands roaming across Karma's skin.

And when Amy did _just that_ , Karma went with, breaking the kiss just enough to tip her head back and let Amy's lips find the soft skin of her neck, moaning as the blonde sucked gently just above her collarbone as Karma's hands tangled in her hair and held Amy to her.

But Karma knew it wouldn't last. She knew Amy would go that one step too far, that her desire would win out over her mind and (maybe) her heart and her hands would slip between them and fumble with the button of Karma's jeans and then inside them and she would _touch_ Karma and Karma knew _she_ wouldn't be able to hold it back and she would moan and cry out Amy's name and _that_ , Karma knew, would be _it_.

And it was.

Amy staggered back. One step then two steps then three, each a perfectly predicted response as Karma tried to step towards her, trying to stay close, trying to keep Amy there _with her_.

But Karma knew. She knew even before she saw the way Amy's eyes darted from side to side and down to the ground and then focused on her hand ( _that_ hand) and even before her _other_ hand moved to that spot on her chest, hovering over her shirt like it was on fire and the heat was just too much but she didn't care and she gripped that fucking _rock_ through the fabric and her face twisted as if she was being burned but she didn't care and _she_ held the fuck on.

Karma knew she couldn't keep Amy with her.

Amy was already gone.

* * *

"Amy. Please…"

When she'd thought about it, when she'd imagined it (so many fucking times even when she _knew_ she shouldn't) Amy had heard those words.

Amy. Please.

Always from Karma and always moaned out, whispered into her ear as Amy's hands traced outlines of parts of Karma she'd never seen, never touched. Always soft and desperate and begging Amy to do what she would, to have her way with her, to make Karma hers.

Always.

Just another thing she'd never imagined _right_.

"Amy. Ple -"

"She said that," Amy snapped, cutting Karma off. "Maisie said that same fucking thing." She stared down at the ground between them, the three or four feet of alley separating her from Karma that might as well have been three or four feet of churning ocean or boiling lava or outer-fucking-space. "Amy, please. Please tell me this isn't what I think it is. Please tell me you're not…"

She trailed off but they both knew there were _plenty_ of options to end that with. Tell me you're not _with her_. Tell me you're not _fucking her_. Tell me you're not _cuddling her, sleeping with her, laughing at me with her._

Tell me you're not _in love with her_.

Karma leaned against the brick wall and tried not to think of how badly _she_ wanted to say _that one_.

Amy put her head in her hands and her body shook with the sobs and Karma had to look away, to look out at the street and all the people passing by. So many of them had probably stopped and stared and watched but now, now that it was just tears and pain and Amy fucking _breaking_ right in front of her…

No one even slowed down.

"I'll have to think about it," Amy said and Karma barely understood her through the tears, the way the words sputtered in the sobs. " _That's_ what she said. I'll have to think about it. I asked her if this had to be… if we were... "

Amy threw her head back and screamed, slamming her fists against the air and Karma didn't move.

"I asked and she said she'd have to think about it and I know her, Karma. I _know her_." Amy looked at Karma then, her eyes wide open. "She _said_ she has to think but she _doesn't_ because she loves me and she's stupid when it comes to me and she'll give me another chance and all I have to do is show her I want it."

Karma wanted to ask. The question was on the tip of her tongue and all she had to do was spit the words out.

_Do you_? _Do you want another chance?_

She wanted to ask but she _couldn't_ because she couldn't hear the answer because she already knew what it was so she didn't ask.

"All I have to do is show her," Amy said. "All I have to do is walk the fuck away and get on a plane and go fucking _home_." Her body shook again as she dropped to her knees in the street and Karma felt like she was dying right alongside her. "That's all I have to do," Amy sniffled.

And when Karma looked back on it, when she _could_ , she knew just as she had in that moment, that Amy had, as Amy always _did_ , left that one key bit out.

Walk away. Get on a plane. Go home.

And never see Karma again.

And when it was all said and done and Karma looked back on it, she knew _that_ was the moment.

The moment she loved Amy enough to make the decision Amy never would.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> According to my original plan, there's only two chapters left of this story. Except... I do have some ideas I could play with, if people wanted me to. Or I could stick with the original ending...

The cab lurched to a sudden stop behind a fancy town car and Amy fell forward in her seat, Karma's arm shooting out and pressing against her chest, the only thing holding her in place.

Trapping her, basically.

And Amy tried really hard not to think of it like _that_ but it was a losing battle, one she'd been fighting for years but she was tired and her fight was gone. Things were different, _they_ were different and that call and that _kiss_ had changed so much and they _both_ knew it, especially when she pulled away, when she practically crawled into the seat of the cab, as if Karma's touch burned.

Because it _did_. It always _had_ but now it didn't _just_ burn, it _hurt_ and not in the good way and Amy couldn't help wishing she'd just said yes. Maybe that would have saved them all (except her) ( _maybe_ ) a whole fuckload of pain. She'd be home, in Cali, curled up in her chair on the balcony, reading a book or studying or just soaking in the sun and knowing Maisie was right there, next to her or in the kitchen or cuddled in their bed and everything would be alright.

But she hadn't said _yes_ and she wasn't home and everything was most definitely _not_ alright and Amy couldn't really see a way it would be again.

She looked out the cab's window (anything to avoid looking at Karma and _that_ feeling, that _fear_ and that… _misery_ … at the thought of looking at the one person who had always owned her heart just about fucking killed Amy) and she slowly realized where they were. She recognized the stretch of streets just two blocks from the main campus and three from the small cluster of freshman dorms. She'd been here before, visiting Karma that first year, but _those_ times weren't the ones that pricked her eyes with tears and made her stomach lurch. They weren't the ones (the _one_ ) that made her grab the handle and jump from the still stopped cab and bolt faster than she or Karma even knew she could.

Amy left a confused and startled Karma in her wake, scrambling to pay the fare and then chase after her, yelling at her to stop or slow down or _just fucking wait_ and Amy heard Karma's voice echoing across the concrete but she kept moving, not slowing down, and sure as fuck _not waiting_ because, really, Amy knew _that_ was her whole problem in a fucking nutshell.

She'd waited too long. In more ways the one.

She weaved around people and across streets and through what traffic there was, her broken and battered mind on autopilot and her wounded (fuck _that_ \- her _broken, shattered, shredded_ ) heart was doing the flying. Amy didn't look back to see Karma, she didn't have to. She knew the other girl was there, chasing but not running, content to follow Amy but not crowd her and if either of them had stopped to think about it, they'd have realized how fucking ridiculous that was _now_.

Maybe if either of them had done a little more crowding (or a lot fucking _less_ ) earlier on, they wouldn't have been there then, maybe things would have been different.

But probably not.

Amy saw more and more that she recognized, more and more of the tiny patch of campus set aside for the newbies, the ones who were from out of town, the ones who needed some time and some help to adjust to _the city_ and _the life_. Karma had lived here her freshman year, though she honestly didn't need to. Her parents (read: _Lucas_ because Molly had never doubted, not _for a second_ ) had worried, had been so sure Karma wouldn't last, that she'd make it a week or maybe two, and then she'd be on the first flight back to Austin, to the safety and (sometimes) loving bosom of her family where she belonged.

Amy hadn't thought so. She didn't think the city was too much for Karma, she thought it was probably _exactly_ what her best friend needed. Amy was sure the city was going to make like Redbull and give Karma wings and Amy couldn't wait to see her fly, even if her father wasn't so sure.

"Zen goes to the Peace Corps and ends up washing out like a punk and my father thinks I'll be just like _him_ ," Karma said to Amy a week before they left for school. They had flights out scheduled for the same day, twenty minutes apart, neither one wanting to be alone in Austin any longer than they had to.

"And what do _you_ think?" Amy asked her. They were laying on her bed, staring up at the stars on the ceiling, shoulders and legs pressed together, fingers entwined, as close as lovers even if there was so much metaphorical space between them they could have choked on it, but for them it was like it was all the most normal thing in the world. It had been a long road back to _that_ and Amy, for one, thanked God every day they'd somehow made it.

"If I didn't think I could handle it," Karma said, "I wouldn't go." She turned her head to look at Amy even if she couldn't quite see her. "I'm excited and it'll be awesome and I can't wait, but…" Karma turned onto her side, her head resting on Amy's chest and whispered into the dark. "I still wish we were going to Clement."

Amy wrapped an arm around Karma, holding her tight. "I know you do," she said. "So do I. But Cal gave me a scholarship and Clement didn't and Cal took me now and not on the waiting list…" She shrugged and her duvet bunched under her shoulders and her eyes never left the stars and she swore they were all shining so much fucking brighter than usual, casting their light of truth on all her lies.

She was such an overdramatic shit sometimes.

Karma nodded against Amy's chest and she never saw the look on Amy's face in the dark or the light of truth or any light at all. She never saw the 'I'm _so_ lying to you right now but it's not because I _want_ to, it's because I _have_ to but you'll never understand the difference and that's half the reason I'm doing it' look. And that was good because she wouldn't have understood and she would have lost it and their last week together might really have been their _last_ week together.

And Amy couldn't have lived with _that_.

It had been a year then, more than that actually. More than a year since Amy had left with _Pussy Explosion_ and it had taken time, more than either of them had expected, for things to settle and get back to what passed for normal with them and that time had helped Amy, it had helped her to come to certain… realizations… about what _normal_ meant.

For _her_ , normal meant loving Karma. It meant _being in love_ with Karma. And no trips, no three months on a bus with a band, no failed attempts at hopping off that looping track through her heart was going to change that. And if all _that_ had done nothing, if sleeping with Liam and loving Reagan and traveling with the _Pussies_ and a few meaningless on-the-road hookups and months of tension and unresolved anger when she came back had done nothing to make her love Kamra even a tiny bit less?

Four years together at college wouldn't do a thing, except make it _worse_.

Going to Clement together had been the dream but somewhere along the way (right about the moment she kissed Karma or maybe, if she was honest, even _before_ that) that _dream_ had become Amy's _nightmare_ and so, if she lied just a _little_ , if she fudged and didn't let slip that Cal only gave her a partial ride (and Clement a full one), if she left out that she barely got into Cal (and only because Bruce knew someone who knew someone who knew someone and he still felt like Amy was his enough to help) it kinda made sense.

As much sense as any of Amy's lies ever made.

She needed time, _real_ time. Not a summer, not a few months, not a limited time offer that she knew would end with her riding back into town and then standing on the Ashcroft's front step with butterflies in her stomach and the urge to kiss Karma until neither of them could stand. Amy had finally figured out that what she needed wasn't a _break_ , it was a _life_. One that _included_ Karma but wasn't _about_ Karma, one that _involved_ Karma but didn't _revolve_ around her, one that Karma _always_ had _a place_ in. Just not _the place_. Just not the one that took up Amy's whole heart and her whole mind and made her deliriously happy and, far too often, _just_ fucking delirious.

That year, their first time _really_ apart, was Amy's first real chance at getting over Karma like she knew she had to, and she knew she was finally getting what she had always needed. Time.

She got three whole weeks of it.

As she moved through the traffic and the people and the streets on _that_ day, Amy remembered those three weeks in a blur. She remembered how hopeful she'd been as her flight took off, how many times she told herself over and over and over again that this was it. This was what Reagan and that summer and every other so-called way to move on had never been. She remembered the feel of the California sun on her skin as she left the airport, the way it felt hot, but so different than Texas hot, the bright and open and 'I'm not a fucking loner weirdo you're gonna be scared of in like two minutes' smile she'd given Jodi, her roomie.

Amy remembered it in a whiplashing blur that raced through her mind like the people passing her on the streets and she'd be fucked if she could pick out more than one or two or maybe ( _maybe_ ) three moments that really stood out from those weeks. Moments that stood out for anything _other_ than making her miserable or making her feel lost and empty or making her miss Karma even when they talked at least _twice_ a day and it was _always_ Karma's voice she heard last at night and _almost always_ her voice she heard first in the morning.

Three weeks was all it took. Three weeks made Amy realize that time was fucking _endless_ and that a life that didn't revolve around Karma was fucking _pointless_ and it didn't matter if she was under the California sun and it didn't matter if it wasn't Texas hot and it didn't matter if Jodi was awesome and knew every lesbian bar in a ten mile radius and it didn't matter, it didn't matter, it just _didn't fucking matter_.

None of it mattered. Not without Karma.

"This is insane," Jodi said as she watched Amy pack a bag at a breakneck pace, probably forgetting half of what she needed, but that didn't matter because she was _going to_ the only thing she _really_ needed. "You haven't even been here a month," she said. "At least come out with me once. Hit the bars, a couple clubs. Find a girl, have a random hook up and sneak out of someone's room at two in the morning and then, if you _still_ can't get Kara out of your mind, I'll drive you to the airport myself."

It sounded good (except for the Kara part, but that was the closest Jodi had come to getting the name right in three weeks so Amy took what she could get.) It sounded logical. It sounded like the smart thing to do and Amy knew it was _all_ of those. But that was the problem. She'd done that. She'd done good, she'd done logical, she'd done smart.

She'd put her feelings away after the wedding and tried (so fucking hard with Brazilian girls and being by herself and pretending nothing hurt) to move on. She'd given Karma to Liam to save their friendship and heal her best friend's heart (before she and Liam, of course, shattered it again.) She'd loved Reagan as best she could and she'd buried every fucking _thought_ of Karma and when none of that worked, she fucking _left_. She'd split town for three months with no one and nothing but a camera and a seat on a bus.

And she'd gone to California. She'd thrown away Clement and the dream and she'd put an entire country between them and it had only taken three weeks ( _weeks_ ) before she couldn't take it anymore.

"You're right," she told Jodi. "This _is_ insane. And that's why it's the only thing I can do."

So she booked a flight and called a cab and hopped a plane and crossed that country she'd put between them and then took another cab and found Karma's dorm.

And waited.

On an unseasonably cool Thursday in September, Amy Raudenfeld sat on the front step of Loyola Hall and watched the students file in and out and out and in and she waited. She tried to plan a speech to pass the time. It had to be something suitably romantic, obviously. It had to be something Karma wouldn't see coming, maybe something from the McConaughey oeuvre (which would tell Karma _everything_ about how desperate Amy was.) A romantic comedy missive of the kind of tear jerking epic proportions that would make Karma's knees buckle and her heart swell and if there was even the _tiniest_ bit of love in Karma's heart, if she felt even a _fraction_ of what Amy felt, it would be enough.

She tried. Really. But her speech, such as it was (McConaughey had nothing to fear from Raudenfeld) kept getting interrupted by her fantasy, by her visions of how it all would go. Karma spotting her from a distance, breaking into a run and embracing her, practically tackling her to the ground and smothering her with kisses in between mutterings of 'Thank _God_ ' and 'I was coming _to you_ , I even had a ticket' and then more kisses and giggles and everyone around them doing a slow clap and music swelling in the background and a fade to black on their smiling faces.

On an unseasonably cool day in September, Amy realized she'd _become_ Karma and she was oddly OK with that because that fantasy was just about perfect.

And on _that_ day, as she finally reached the cold concrete in front of Loyola Hall with Karma at her heels and Maisie's words ringing in her head, Amy remembered _that_ more than anything.

It was a fantasy. And nothing more.

That day in September, Amy had waited. And waited. And the breeze blew and she wished she'd brought a sweater or a light jacket or something. And she waited.

She waited till she saw her, till Karma came into view, just across the way. She was wearing a sundress and a pair of boots (boots that made Amy _really_ appreciate her legs cause, yeah, like it took _boots_ for that to happen) and smiling as if she didn't feel the chill and Amy marveled at how you could take the girl out of Texas but you couldn't take Texas out of the girl.

Karma was talking and smiling and laughing with some guy and Amy almost didn't even notice him at first. He was just _a guy_. A guy with three or four days worth of scruff on his cheeks and long hair tied back in a sleek ponytail and wearing the tightest pair of jeans Amy had ever seen on a guy, the kind of jeans Shane would have loved and other guys (other _Texans_ ) would have kicked his ass for even wearing.

He wasn't Steve or Ryan or Jorge, he wasn't any of the guys Karma had talked about from the dorm because she'd told Amy _all_ about them and she'd even seen Jorge once during a Skype chat (and Karma was sure Shane would've been more Jorge's type than she was) and this… guy… he wasn't any of them.

He was just a guy.

A _guy_. Karma was talking and laughing and flirting with a _guy_ and Amy heard Molly Ashcroft's voice in her head, reminding an entire PFLAG meeting that her daughter would never _ever_ be a lesbian.

Amy _heard_ it and _ignored_ it because she knew ( _knew_ ) it wasn't true, not in the way that mattered anyway. Maybe Karma would never be a lesbian (sleeping with a guy wasn't a deal breaker, _she_ was proof of that, but Karma didn't seem quite as over _that_ as Amy was) but she didn't _have to be_.

Lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, Amysexual, it _didn't fucking matter_. Love is love and love was love and _Karmy_ was _love_ and that was all there was to it. And if she kept telling herself that while Karma kept talking to that guy, Amy figured maybe she'd actually believe it..

She watched as Karma smiled at him and laughed at something he said and touched his arm above the elbow (which was something Jodi said mattered but Amy had never heard of it so she didn't know but right then she fucking _knew_ ) and people passed around them and crowded and bumped and Karma had to step closer, his hand drifting to her hip and she was so close and it all looked so… and then she turned into him and when she did, when she moved _into_ him, her head turned and she looked at the steps, she looked at the front of her door, her eyes falling onto that spot, that place where Amy waited.

And then they looked away.

Karma turned her eyes back to the _guy_ and Amy _waited_. She waited for it to hit her, for Karma's brain to catch up to her eyes and for her to do the classic movie double take and run. Run _to_ her and run _from_ him and then there'd be the tackling and the smothering and the muttering and the clapping and fading to black and all would be right with the world.

Amy waited. And waited. And waited until Karma turned and took _his_ hand and together they walked off (not off into the sunset, so hey, there was _that_ ) and she waited till they were lost in the shuffle and bustle and she couldn't make out Karma's figure anymore or the red of her hair or the brown of those boots or….

Anything.

"You never even saw me."

"What?" Karma was out of breath and trying to act like she wasn't but she'd just chased Amy for like eight blocks and she wasn't nearly in good enough shape for _that_. "I never what?"

"You never even saw me," Amy repeated and yes, she was talking about that September day but she knew it was more than _just_ that. "I waited for you and I had a speech and… I _waited_ and you left with him and you never even told me about _him_ . You never so much as mentioned him so he was nothing, in the end, but you left with him and I _waited_ and you never even saw me."

"Umm… OK?" Karma was lost. She'd felt that way a lot that last few days, lost in her feelings and then her pain and then in Amy's kiss and she was tired of being spun round and round and being so fucking dizzy.

"It was nothing but it was _everything_ ," Amy said and she knew she wasn't making even the tiniest bit of sense but that didn't matter, not even a little. Sense was overrated and she'd honestly had just about enough of it. "You _never_ saw me. Not until…"

"Until what?" Karma asked but Amy shook her head, suddenly afraid to finish because she knew if she did, that might really be what this was. A _finish_. "Until what, Amy?" Karma pressed because now she had an idea where this was going and she knew they needed it, _all_ of it, out there on the table or it would all just lay in wait and sneak up on them like it had in the store or on the street. "Say it. Fucking grow a pair and _say it_."

Amy stared at that step, the one she'd sat on for another hour after Karma and that _guy_ had walked off together, the one where she'd sat as she finally called Jodi and asked her if she could pick her up at the airport and no, it wasn't anything bad, she'd just changed her mind and realized how _insane_ it all was and no, she didn't really want to talk about it and yes, she'd call with her flight info. She stared at that step and it was all so fucking clear she didn't understand how she'd never seen it before.

Except she knew that she had. She wasn't the one who couldn't see. She was just the one who ignored.

"You never saw me," Amy said softly, without a trace of anger in her voice.. She was too far gone for that anymore. "You never saw me until Reagan. Or the prom or Felix or the bus or…" She hung her head and pulled the chain and the ring from under her shirt. "Or until _now_. You never saw me and that was _never_ your fault."

Karma didn't know what to say. She wanted to argue, to deny, to say it wasn't so. But she knew it was, even if she didn't think that was _bad_. It was just her, it was how she was, it was how she always was. It didn't change her feelings, it didn't change her _heart_.

But that was easy for _her_ to believe. After all, she lived with her heart.

Amy didn't.

"You never saw me," Amy said, her knuckles going white around the ring. "But I _always_ saw you. I _knew_ , Karma. Do you understand that? I knew what you would do. The second Maisie asked me, I knew what you would do. Maybe not confessions in the night or kisses on the street but I knew you'd do something and I came here _because_ I knew."

Karma kept her distance and nothing had ever hurt her that much. She wanted ( _all_ she wanted) was to take Amy in her arms and make it better, to heal her and love her and be with her, but that…

She wasn't sure that wouldn't kill them both.

"I knew what you'd do and I came here anyway," Amy said. "I couldn't let go. I _never_ could, no matter how many times… no matter how many times you _made_ me, no matter how many times or how many ways you told me, I couldn't let go and I made you…" She tipped her head back and shook. "I even you believe, somehow. I kept pushing and pushing and I came here and you were with him and I knew it then. I _knew it_ and I still couldn't let go."

"Knew what?" Karma asked. She still didn't understand who _he_ was or when Amy had come or any of it but she was pretty sure none of that really mattered.

"Knew that _you_ weren't _me_ ," Amy said. She turned and looked at Karma, the ring dropping from her hand and settling against her chest. "I couldn't last three weeks, but you… I was right," she said. "You were _flying_ and it was… you were so beautiful and _God_ , I loved…"

Karma took a step towards her but Amy held up a hand and she stopped.

"It could've been done," Amy said. "It could've… _should've_ … been done but I couldn't… I _knew_ , Karma. I knew what you'd do and it was what I'd wanted for so long and it was this perfect fantasy and I just couldn't…"

The air rushed out of Karma's lungs and that dizzy feeling swept over her again and it was all she could to stay standing. "You couldn't _what_?" she asked.

"I couldn't resist," Amy said. "I threw it all away, I ruined _everything_ … me and Maisie, you and me… _all_ of it, because I couldn't resist living in my fantasy one last time." She was crying again, silent tears that rolled down her face and fell to the concrete. "And I'm sorrier for that than you will ever know," she said. "But I just… I _waited_ Karma and I just… I couldn't _wait_ anymore because time, it just never fucking stops and it was just never fucking enough and now… now I've got it."

Amy walked forward, stopping just in front of Karma, in that same spot she'd seen _her_ on that cool September day. Amy ran a hand along Karma's arm and up to her shoulder and then to her face, cupping the other girl's cheek as she leaned in, pressing one soft kiss against Karma's lips.

"I needed time," Amy said as she rested her forehead against Karma's. "And now I've got it, now I've got all the time in world and that's _all_ I've got and it's _my_ fault and don't you ever think otherwise."

She kissed Karma again, quickly, and then she was gone and all Karma could do was watch her as she disappeared into the people, never once looking back.

 


	17. Chapter 17

On that unseasonably cool September day, Karma really _didn't_ see Amy. There were too many people and she was a week away from getting contact lenses and she wasn't _looking_ for Amy and _if_ she had been and _if_ she had seen her then that guy (whose name Karma doesn't even remember _now_ ) wouldn't have stood a chance.

But Karma _really_ didn't see her. She didn't know to look.

The first time she met Maisie, Karma didn't really _see_ her either (at least at _first_ ).

She didn't know she _had_ to.

It was a perfectly seasonably warm March day in Cali (like they all were) and Karma had gone to visit Amy over a long a weekend. It had been a total spur of the moment thing, nothing they'd planned or prearranged and if Amy seemed a little (just a _little_ ) hesitant, Karma didn't notice, not even when Amy asked… you know… _why_?

"Can't a girl just get the urge to pop on over and visit her _soulmate_?" Karma asked over the phone (on her way to the airport with her ticket in hand and her overnight bag resting next to her, all of which made it a _little_ hard for Amy to say no, like she would have _anyway_.)

"I don't think a cross country flight qualifies as a 'pop over', Karms," Amy laughed and Karma _did_ notice that, did notice that it was _that_ laugh, the one Amy used when she was nervous (a titter instead of a giggle) and she wondered (all through the pre-flight safety lecture and takeoff and right up until the drink cart came around) why _exactly_ Amy was _nervous_.

Amy lived for her visits.

And.. _OK_ … so maybe the last one hadn't gone as planned. Maybe they'd had one too many drinks (and only _one_ too many because Karma didn't _do_ drunk anymore, not until _that_ weekend and they were still _far_ from that) and maybe they had encouraged each other (as in double dog dares and a whole lot of threats to reveal incriminating pics and videos and stories to college friends) to drunk dial their most recent exes and maybe Reagan (Amy's _only_ ex) and Liam (cause Karma wasn't counting any of her… activities… as exes since, _frankly_ , she wasn't sure she was done with any of them just yet) hadn't appreciated the middle of the night calls full of heavy breathing (Karma) or the drunken blubbering of 'why did you let me go?' and 'I'm pussy _exclusive_ now but not _yours_ and your loss, _bitch_ ' (Amy) or the suggestion that their 'equipment might be on the small side (Amy, _again_ , but totally talking to Liam because, as she said, Reagan's 'equipment' had been _just right_.)

And maybe they'd woken up with the mothers of all hangovers (at least until _that_ weekend) and wondered just what they'd done until Jodi played back the video on her cell of the two of them, huddled in the middle of Amy's bed in nothing but their undies and tee shirts, redialing Amy's cell over and over and over again.

It hadn't been their proudest moment but it was one that would never happen again (especially since Liam and Reagan had both changed their numbers and no, there was no point in asking how Karma knew _that_ ) and Amy had to know that and so there was no reason, none _at all (_ that Karma could think of), for her to be nervous about Karma coming to Cali.

But she _was_ and Karma knew it and it was that very thing (Amy's _nervous_ ) and maybe a few other… things… (Amy's _lack_ , of Skype,and Amy's _quiet_ , during Skype, and Amy's _slow_ , at returning texts or calls) that had Karma popping over in the first place. Maybe she wasn't her Aunt Sage and maybe she didn't have the ESP or a thorough knowledge of Amy's star chart or a firm grasp of her tarot or her tea leaves or her _whatever_ , but Karma knew when something was _up_ and something was _definitely_ up.

She worried it was Reagan, that _after_ the drunk dials (and _before_ the new number) Amy had reached out again and maybe they'd started talking and maybe now, knowing Amy was (in her words) 'pussy exclusive' (which Karma still wasn't _sold on_ but she couldn't exactly _prove_ that Amy would still… you know… with a guy, not without… you know... _a guy..._ and Amy seemed to have a distinct lack of guys around her right then) had been enough for Reagan.

And _that_ just wasn't going to happen cause non pussy exclusive but still pussy _interested_ Amy hadn't been _enough_ for Reagan and Karma would be damned if she was going to let her come waltzing back in and lay some claim to Amy now that she measured up to whatever biphobic gold star lesbian bullshit standards Reagan had.

It (the the thing that was up with Amy) wasn't Reagan.

Karma worried that maybe it _was_ that last visit, that maybe she'd gone a bit far and pushed a little too hard. She knew Amy hadn't been seeing anyone (not seriously, though Amy had mentioned some… activities… and Karma thought that was healthy if still slightly out of character for Amy) and she'd thought her friend needed a little closure and maybe that would help get her back in the game.

Now, Karma wondered, if she'd forced Amy to go too far too fast and filled her with regret and longing for what she'd once had. If Reagan sauntering back in and claiming Amy for herself was bad (and it _so_ was) then pining and unrequited Amy was _worse_ and Karma worried that she'd created a monster and had only herself to blame.

It wasn't pining or unrequited Amy either.

(It was very much _requited_ and that was going to be a whole other _problem_.)

Karma worried that… well… she just _worried_. Amy was nervous about her coming and Amy was being distant and Amy was being… _weird_ … and nervous Amy + distant Amy + weird Amy never ended well (see: Reagan and Communal and Reagan and discovering the lack of pussy exclusivity and - _unfortunately_ \- Karma and the pool kiss and the pussy explosions and the summer of hell) and Karma was determined to head this sure to be a fucking _mess_ off at the pass.

And that was why the popover and that was why she wouldn't take no (or even the 'not quite no' Amy tried) for an answer.

"It's just we've got this… thing… I guess Shane would call it a group hang," Amy said. "Me and some of the girls from the dorm and we've been planning it for a while and I can't really bail…"

And Karma saw right through _that_ shit and asked who was coming and Amy ticked off the names (Suze and Becks and Jess and Maisie and Beth and Marti) and Karma hadn't met them _all_ but she'd met _most_ and she was sure they wouldn't mind one more and she _totally_ promised to keep the embarrassing stories to a minimum.

"I won't even mention the yo-yo debacle," she said, "please, Amy, _please_?"

Amy never stood a chance.

So when Amy (and posse) met her at the airport, Karma might have let the hug linger a little longer than needed (and that was all _for Amy_ , of course) and she might have taken Amy's hand and held it all the way to the car and all the way to the restaurant and all the way to the table and not even noticed the awkward glances or shifting and stuttering steps as the group tried to arrange itself and everyone find a seat. Of course _(of course_ ) _she_ sat next to Amy (with no one on the other side cause this wasn't Kale vs. Shrimp II) and then (and _only_ then) did she drop her _best friend's_ hand.

Amy sat at the end of the table, next to Karma and across from Jodi with Jess next to _her_ and with Becks on Karma's other side and Maisie across from Becks. Karma knew Jodi and she'd met Becks and Jess last semester and she chatted with them and laughed with the new girls (or _most_ of them) and she kept bumping her shoulder into Amy and smiling at her and resting a hand on her arm and none of it was out of the ordinary (for _them_ ) and Karma didn't think much of it.

She was the only one who didn't.

By the time the second round of appetizers and third round of drinks hit the table there was a tension in the air that even Karma could feel and she'd caught Jodi giving Amy weird looks (like _what are you doing_ and _why does she keep_ touching _you_ weird) and Jess had made a point to turn away from the group and talk almost exclusively with Maisie (and Karma made a mental note to ask Amy later if they were a couple _and_ if Maisie was deaf or a mute or something cause the girl hadn't made a _peep_ since they sat down) and Amy kept inching further and further from Karma.

"Amy, if you scoot any further, you're gonna fall off the bench," Karma said, looping her arm through Amy's. "Get back over here."

She pulled Amy close and Amy tumbled into her and Karma rested her head against the blonde's and mumbled 'that's better' into her hair and that, apparently, was the last _fucking_ straw.

" _Amy_ ," Jodi said. "Come on. Not cool."

Jess nodded and turned back to the group. "I thought we talked about _this_ , Amy."

Becks sighed and drained her beer. "I told you," she said. "Group hangs. Kiss of fucking death."

And then Maisie (who Karma had almost forgotten what with her _silence_ and everyone else's sudden _issues_ that she didn't quite get) stood to leave.

It wasn't as dramatic as Reagan bailing on Communal or as stunning as Amy chasing after her and, at first, Karma wasn't even sure the girl was _leaving_. She could have been going to the restroom or to order more drinks or to buy Jess a rose (cause, _seriously_ , those two were totes fucking adorbs) and it wasn't until Maisie finally spoke that Karma got it.

And _it_ had nothing to do with what _Maisie_ said and everything to do with… well...

"I'm done," she said, softly. So softly that Karma _barely_ heard her and Amy _couldn't have_ , not from her seat, but Amy wasn't _in_ her seat. Karma wasn't sure how she hadn't noticed _that_ but she hadn't, not until Amy was _over there_ and _there_ was next to Maisie and not just next to her but _next_ to her (Jess had cleared out and Karma hadn't seen that either and clearly Amy lived in a dorm full of ninjas.) Amy had a hand on Maisie's shoulder and another on the small of her back and she was whispering in her ear and Amy had that look.

_That_ look. The one Karma had seen in the parking lot outside Communal

_Karma, I've got this_

and the one she'd seen when Amy came home after the break up and the one she'd seen standing outside a bus next to a kiddie bike.

_That_ look.

The 'shit, this is gonna go badly' and 'I can't believe I fucked up like _this_ ' and 'somehow this is all Karma's fault' look.

And the night (the _entire_ night) suddenly replayed in Karma's head. All the little things, like the way everyone kept trying to refuse seats and move _away_ from Amy and how Jodi had tried spinning some bullshit excuse for not sitting on the end. Or the way Becks had tried to convince Karma to ride shotgun instead of in the back with Amy ('don't you want to see the sights?'). Or the way Amy's eyes (which Karma had tried so hard _not_ to stare into) had kept drifting, circling the table but somehow _always_ ending up back on Maisie.

"I thought it was her top," Karma muttered (mostly to herself), because she _had_ , she really had thought it was Maisie's top (cut down to _there_ ) and yeah, she'd _noticed_ Maisie too, for a minute and she had to admit the girl was cute and maybe (with a little actual _effort_ with her hair and makeup) she would be more than cute (and no, that didn't remind Karma of _anyone_ ) and she'd thought that was _all it was_.

She thought Amy was checking the girl out and, if she hadn't thought Maisie and Jess were a _thing_ (or a potential thing, at least) Karma might have even encouraged Amy to engage in some… activities… with Maisie.

Clearly, that wasn't encouragement Amy _needed_.

But then Maisie shook her head and shrugged off Amy's hand and made for the door and she didn't run and she didn't look back and Karma had to give her props. If this was an act to get Amy's attention, it was working like a fucking charm because Amy was chasing after her and Karma was left there, nursing her beer and swimming in the weirdest sense of deja vu.

She shook it off (as best she could) and finished her drink and chatted up Jodi (who was _all about_ NYC guys) and she almost didn't notice (yeah, _right_ ) when Amy came back to the table a few minutes later with Maisie in tow.

Their hands were clasped together and Amy's thumb was rubbing small circles on Maisie's skin and no, Karma didn't notice that _at all_.

"Karma?" Amy asked, leaning over Jodi from behind and hollering just a little to be heard. "Can I… um… _we_.. talk to you outside for a minute?"

Karma considered, for just a _second_ , asking 'why, whatever _for_?' and playing dumb, but she didn't and instead she just nodded and followed Amy and Maisie (who, apparently, couldn't _walk_ or _talk_ or do much of _anything_ without Amy _touching_ her) out the door and onto the sidewalk.

"Let's go over there," Amy said, nodding across the street at the small stretch of beach where it was quieter and there were fewer people jostling them to get in or out of the bar. She led them across the pavement to the sand and the noise and the people faded into the background and Karma didn't feel like she was being marched to the gallows _even a little._

"Karma," Amy said. "This is Maisie -"

"We met, remember?" Karma interrupted (cause she really wasn't in the mood for some long drawn out Amy-esque explanation and discussion of china patterns and joint checking and 'I _was_ in love with you' and… wait… what the _fuck_ did that have to do with anything?)

Karma's stomach flipped and her palms went clammy and she didn't think it was from the beer.

She tried not to think _at all_.

"Yeah," Amy said, "I know. But I didn't… I mean… I tried… but everyone was talking… and you were so excited… and there was the hugging and then the walking and it was just all so crazy and -"

"Amy," they (Karma and _Maisie_ ) said in fucking _unison_.

The blonde's head snapped back and forth between them and there was fear in her eyes and Karma almost laughed but not quite and the thought flitted through her mind that, in a different world (one that involved much less touching of Amy - like _none at all_ \- she might have liked Maisie.)

"Karma," Amy said. "This is Maisie. My girlfriend. We've been together four months and… "

Karma waited (and so did Maisie) and just when she thought Amy had had some kind of seizure or stroked out or lost the power of speech, the blonde finished the thought.

"We've been together four months and she's met Lauren and she's going home with me on spring break and… " Amy smiled at Maisie (at her _girlfriend_ ) and Maisie smiled back and Karma thought she was going to need another beer and then… "And I love her."

Another beer?

Another _keg_ , maybe. Or a bottle of wine just for her, or maybe _two,_ or maybe just a row of shots, lined up along the bar and maybe that good looking bartender, the one with the smokey eyes and the bulge in his pants and maybe maybe maybe

Maybe she just needed to girl the fuck up. For Amy.

"Nice to meet you," Karma said. " _Again_." And then she took Maisie's hand from Amy's. "We should _talk_ ," she said and led the girl off, down the sidewalk, tossing a "We'll be back before last call" over her shoulder as Amy stood there in the sand.

She was nervous. Karma could tell.

She could always tell.

* * *

_That_ weekend, a few hours after Amy had absolved her of guilt and then disappeared into the crowd (and say what you want about her, Amy knew how to make an _exit_ ), Karma sat in front of her laptop, her finger poised over the key.

_This_ , she knew, was a bad idea. Like maybe the baddest one she'd ever had and _that_ was saying something. But Amy was still… well… wherever the _hell_ she was (it had been three hours and Karma hadn't heard a word and Amy wasn't answering calls or returning texts) and this was all just so…

Fucked up seemed somehow inadequate.

And maybe this was a bad idea ( _so not_ maybe) and maybe she'd regret it later but there was already a long list of 'regret it later' from this weekend so what was one more, right? So she hit the button before she could argue with herself anymore and waited. Waited for the call to go through and the screen to light up. Waited for…

"Karma?"

"Hey, Maisie," she said. "We should talk."


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More about Maisie and Karma's talks.

**Not the last chapter. Got a few ideas so we'll go for at least one more.**

As they walked (read: Karma _dragged_ ) arm and arm down the sidewalk, passing by the people laughing and talking and heading from one bar to the next, Maisie told Karma about her and Amy.

Mostly cause Karma wouldn't stop walking till she did and it did seem, to Maisie at least, to be the fair thing to do. Two years, one 'I'll have to think about it" (or _two_ , if you counted the one she said _to Amy_ ), and one giant Raudenfeld lie later, Maisie would be hard pressed to give even one miniscule fuck about being fair _to Karma_.

They met, Maisie said, in Creative Writing 107, which was part of Amy's major and a total lark for Maisie. She was a _SCIENCE MAJOR_ and Karma could hear it, all caps and all big thinking and hard working and going to do something _great_ someday, not like some major hopping, plan changing, can't make up my mind about _anything_ people she might know.

Karma glanced over at Maisie (who had, at least, stopped _actively_ trying to tug her arm free) and yeah, she could see it. Karma could totally picture her in a pristine white lab coat with the ID tag clipped to the pocket and safety glasses perched on her head like the world's dorkiest shades. And _then_ Karma had a brief (but not _nearly_ brief _enough_ ) vision of Maisie standing at the end of Amy's bed in nothing _but_ that lab coat and that made her face flush and her breathing come just a little harder than she'd like and Karma turned away, looking forward again, at the pair of staggeringly drunk sorority girls in front of them.

"I almost didn't take the class," Maisie said. "It didn't really fit in my schedule but my advisor said I needed something to show grad schools I could be well rounded and give the other parts of my brain a chance to… exercise."

Karma nodded as if that made all the sense in the world and it _kinda_ did, after all what was her stream of ever changing majors and plans if not a little exercise for her brain?

The reached a corner some four or five (or was it six or maybe _seven_?) streets from the bar and Karma wouldn't admit it, but she was fucking _lost_ and it was Maisie who took the lead then, pulling _Karma_ this time, through a crosswalk and back over to the beach. "I know a spot," she said and the tone, the way her voice deepened and dipped and rolled out of her like a wave crashing onto the beach made Karma think _some kinda way_ about that spot.

Either they were going to make out or Maisie was going to kill her and dump the body.

Neither would have surprised her at that point and Karma wasn't sure which prospect terrified her more.

Maisie led her to _the_ spot, a little rough of beach in front of a dune that was more like a 'du', really, like a bee sting in the sand, and they sat and Karma tried to ignore the way the sand crept up under the cuffs of her too-tight jeans (she'd been dressed to impress - Amy or boys or both - not beachcombing) as she fidgeted to get comfortable.

"I grew up here," Maisie said. "About a mile that way." She pointed into the distance and Karma could only nod because, really, a mile _that way_ could have been San Francisco or Timbuktu or the fucking Cazbah and she wouldn't have known the difference. They stared out at the water and Karma tried to figure out what the hell she'd been thinking when she said 'we should talk.'

Except she _knew_. Karma knew what _she'd_ been thinking, it was all about what _Amy_ had been thinking. "Four months," Karma said. "You've been together four months and I was _here_ two months ago and she never mentioned you once." Maisie didn't say anything and Karma didn't know what _that_ meant and so she did what Karma always did and kept going cause it was either that or…

Well.

Yeah.

Karma didn't have an 'or' cause she was in a different state and Amy wasn't around and she was lost and she'd left her phone at the bar and yeah, Maisie could totally dump the body.

She knew _science_.

"So," Karma said. "She didn't tell _me_ about _you_ , which makes me think maybe she didn't tell you abo -"

"You're her best friend," Maisie said, cutting Karma off. "You have been since you were kids when you met in a ball pit. You went through a painted unicorn phase, your song is _Straight Up_ , you once pretended to be lesbians, you were her first kiss _and_ her first heartbreak, and you have ridiculously bad taste in men."

Karma's eyes widened and she opened her mouth with every intention of arguing but, really, what could she say?

"I'm not Reagan," Maisie said (and if Karma's eyes hadn't already been saucers…) "and Amy isn't sixteen and trying to find a life outside of you." She leaned back in the sand, stretching her arms out behind her for support. "She and I don't have secrets."

"Maybe you don't _have_ them," Karma said though she knew she shouldn't. "But you _were_ one. For four months. And you're going to tell me that it didn't bother you that I didn't even know you existed before tonight?"

Maisie didn't look at her and Karma tried to keep _that_ from flustering her (how can you read someone if said someone refuses to open their fucking book to you?) but it was all _so clear_ when she spoke. "Amy did," Maisie said. "Amy knew I existed and Amy knew who I was and Amy knew… _knows_ … how I feel." She sat up and brushed the sand off on her jeans. "Maybe you notice the theme, there? _Amy_." Maisie stood and looked down at Karma, still sitting in the sand.

"I know who Amy is," Karma said. She refused to stand and get into a toe-to-toe with the other girl (especially since Maisie had a good four inches on her). "She's my _best friend_."

"And she's my girlfriend," Maisie said and there was no worry or concern in her voice, not even the tiniest hint of either, she didn't even emphasize the 'girlfriend', like it wasn't a point to be made (or won), like it was just a fact. Plain. Simple. "I'm dating _her_ , Karma, I'm not dating _you_ or some date a Raudenfeld get an Ashcroft free package purchase."

Maisie turned to walk away and Karma hopped to her feet, cursing the clingy sand. "You think I don't know that?" she called after her and Maisie stopped, just at the edge of the beach.

"I don't know," she said. "And I don't really care. Because Amy does know it and that's the only thing that matters." Maisie tipped her head toward the street. "We should probably head back before she starts worrying I sold you into some human trafficking ring." She shook her head and waited for Karma to catch up. "That girl watches entirely too much Netflix."

* * *

Maisie didn't talk much on the way back, she didn't give Karma any more of the details of the courtship of Amy Raudenfeld and she didn't fill in even one of the blanks doing pirouettes in Karma's head and yeah, that might have been (so not _might_ ) intentional.

She was OK with Karma not knowing about her till tonight, really she was. But being OK didn't mean she wasn't just a little… _pissed_.

So Maisie didn't say much (and Amy didn't say much either, later, even back in her room when Karma refused to go to bed and pouted her best pout right up until Amy reminded her that if push came to shove there _was_ another room and _bed_ Amy could sleep in) but, if Maisie had been so inclined, this might have been what she'd said.

She and Amy had hung out together from the second week in class, right after the Thursday morning they were the only two to get the "Bueller… Bueller…" joke during attendance. They had lunch together that day, coffee the next, brunch on Sunday, and by the end of the next week Maisie's roomie was making U-Haul jokes whenever Amy was within earshot.

It was, at first, platonic. They hung together and worked on their stories and writing ideas. Amy managed to keep Maisie from turning hers into a Clexa fanfic and Maisie kept Amy from writing about doomed lesbian love (or at least _just_ about that) and they got to be friends.

"Good friends," Maisie would have said if she'd said _anything_ to Karma and Karma would, no doubt, have wanted to comment on the difference between good and _best_ but then she would have remembered _Maisie_ wasn't the one kept in the dark for four months and would have decided the semantics of 'good' and 'best' weren't the most salient point right then.

If Maisie had said anything.

They (Maisie and Amy) stayed friends for a month before anything happened, before anything even _sorta_ happened.

It was late and they'd given up on writing. Amy could go for hours but if Maisie got tired it turned into pulling teeth and every word she typed seemed wrong and she'd been up since six for an early lab and when Amy saw Maisie about to stab her laptop screen with a pencil, she had called it. And that was when _writing_ had turned to _watching_ and they were huddled (not _cuddled_ ) on Amy's bed, watching Netflix on her laptop.

The show finished (and if she'd said anything to Karma, Maisie still wouldn't have said the name of the show cause she didn't remember it then and she didn't remember it on Amy's bed four months earlier cause she had totally _not_ been watching _the show_.) They stayed there, talking (Amy) and staring (Maisie) and the screensaver kicked on and the pictures floated by.

Amy. Lauren. Shane. Life in Texas. Farrah and Bruce and then Farrah and Lauren and then Shane and Amy and Lauren and Lizbeth and Leila and then Karma. And Karma. And Karma.

_And Karma._

Maisie asked (though she didn't _want_ to) and she didn't think she _had_ to cause it was painfully obvious, if not from the number of pictures then from the look on Amy's face in all of them, in the way she was always staring at Karma even when she was trying not to.

"Ex?" Maisie asked. "Current?"

If she'd said anything _and_ if she was being honest (which she usually was, but when it came to this and came to Karma and talking to Karma _about_ Karma, Maisie would have found honesty totally fucking overrated), she'd have admitted there was something behind the question. A little hope, a little chance. A little thought, just the beginning of one, that maybe she and Amy...

Just the _beginning_?

Fuck _that_.

Maisie had been crushing for weeks and she knew it and she knew it was getting to the point where it was _obviously_ more than crushing cause Amy was gorgeous _and_ funny _and_ just the right amount of dork _and_ gay and that wasn't an everyday combo in Maisie's experience. So it was passing crush and heading full on into 'I actually know the girl and she's as awesome as she is hot and if there's a 'current', I better find out _now_ before I'm too far gone.'

She already was.

"Neither," Amy said. And if Maisie didn't believe her right then… well.. she didn't exactly believe her any _more_ a half hour later after the blonde had explained faking it and Karma and Reagan and the summer apart and all the rest.

Maisie got it. She immediately got what Amy didn't _like_ to get and what Karma never even _thought_ to get.

They (Karma and Amy) had been a couple for years. Maybe a couple without kissing for _most_ of that time and without sex for _all_ of it, but Karma and Amy _had_ been _together_. But now they weren't. Because Amy told Maisie about that unseasonably cool September day and the long flight back to Cali and all the time she'd had to think about her and Karma and two paths diverging in a wood (Maisie snorted and Amy smiled and they both wanted that to happen a lot more often) and maybe Amy never used the _word_ , but she answered the question just the same.

Ex.

Maisie read the moment and leaned in and she felt Amy's hand on her chest (and that was _fast_ but she wasn't complaining) but then that hand was pushing her away and Amy was shaking her head and Maisie blushed and started to pull away, thinking she'd read it all wrong.

"I'm sorry," she stammered. "I thought… I… uh… I should… um… yeah...I'll.."

"Stay," Amy said.

"What?"

"You'll stay," Amy said. "It's late and you're tired and it's like a twenty minute walk back to your dorm and…"

She trailed off and Maisie tried not to push, really she did. But…

"And?"

(it was just a _gentle_ push)

"And I _want_ to kiss you," Amy said and Maisie was both elated and absolutely fucking _lost_. "I've wanted to kiss you since Sunday brunch cause who the hell does brunch _unless_ there's gonna be some possible kisses, but I don't want to kiss you _now_. Not _right_ now. Not after Karma and my history and…"

Amy took Maisie's hand and tugged her back close to snuggle into her side and Maisie gave in ( _so_ easily) and curled against her.

"I'm _going_ to kiss you, Maisie Martin," Amy said. "And it's gonna be good and you're gonna like it and you're gonna wonder how you ever survived this long without being kissed like that."

Maisie curled tighter and rested her head against Amy's chest. "Pretty sure of yourself, Raudenfeld."

Amy buried her face in Maisie's hair and laughed. "Not even _a little_ ," she said. "Sounded good though, didn't it?" Maisie nodded and the smell of her shampoo (sunflowers and berries) filled Amy's nose. "I'm going to kiss you," she said again. "But when I do? It's gonna be just you and me here or there or wherever we are."

"I like that," Maisie said and she snuggled even closer and her eyes were already starting to shut. "Just don't make me wait too long."

"I won't," Amy said.

And she didn't.

* * *

Amy leaned against the railing outside the bar and watched the crowd.

She hoped Maisie would come back and she hoped Karma would come back and, of the two, she had little doubt about one and whole truckload about the other and if you'd asked her right then, put a gun to her head and had her make a choice?

She'd have picked the doubts. Because the truth was, Amy had _no_ doubt Karma would come back (she always did) and that was only number one on the lengthy list of things she had no doubt about when it came to her best friend, not the least of which was that Karma would _never_ feel for her the way Maisie did and the _strongest_ of which was that the longer they were gone, the more likely Maisie was never coming back.

So Amy leaned and she watched and she waited and she hoped and when the others left she waved goodbye and gave Becks a hug and told Jess to call her for lunch and reminded Jodi they had a date with the new documentary at the _Palace_ that week.

And she waited. And watched.

And remembered.

If Amy had been inclined to talk to Karma that night, she might have mentioned that railing she was leaning on. She might have mentioned that her and Maisie's second official date (the first that Jodi and Becks hadn't chaperoned) had been at that bar. And Amy might have mentioned seeing Maisie waiting for her after she'd paid the check and she might have mentioned how she'd stopped next to the bar and watched.

She'd had the perfect vantage point, out the front door and off to the side and she could see Maisie, but unless Maisie looked, unless she turned her head and maybe even took a step to the side, she wouldn't see Amy, not in the dark of the bar, not with the sunset dripping pink and orange behind her.

Amy stood there and she didn't notice if it was unseasonably cool or typically warm or something in between. She didn't notice the crowd of 'college' kids (not a one of whom could have been more than an hour over sixteen) trying to get in. She didn't notice the sounds of reggae music coming from the beach or the rhythmic bass thump from the dance club two doors down.

She _did_ notice Maisie and Amy was sure ( _so_ sure) she wasn't the only one. She couldn't be, cause there was no way anyone could _not_ notice her, not in those shorts that (in Amy's totally not professional opinion) weren't nearly short enough but still showed enough leg to make supermodels jealous. And not in that strappy little top (though, again, _not little enough_ ) and Amy had never considered herself a breast woman (Reagan's had been nice, but they had _nothing_ on her ass) but… _fuck_ … the way that top hung off the curves of Maisie's chest…

Amy hadn't been on a lot of dates but she was pretty sure drooling was at least a no-no until the third or fourth and she was even _more_ sure that whole thing about it just being her and Maisie and no one else around when they kissed was about to go out the fucking window.

If Amy had talked to Karma, she'd have laughed as she told her how she walked right out of that bar and right over to the railing Maisie was leaning on, and the only thought in her mind was that she hoped ( _hoped_ ) she didn't have bad breath (she was already regretting the nachos at the bar) and that she hoped she didn't use too much tongue or should she not use any at all and _fuck_ that was something that maybe she should have thought about _before_ she was almost there

and _way_ before she stopped paying attention (cause _thinking_ ) and not seeing Maisie turn and spot her and move toward her, just in time for Amy to lean in and for their heads to crack together and for all those 'college' kids (still trying to get in) to 'ooooh' at the sound and the way they both staggered back.

Amy rubbed her head and looked at Maisie, doing the same thing. "I'm so sorry," she said. "I wasn't looking and -"

"Yes, you were," Maisie said. She checked the her head one last time and leaned back against the railing. "You were looking and you had your 'thinking way too much about something you should just be _doing_ face on."

Amy blinked her eyes against the sunset and took a step closer, letting her hands fall to the railing on either side of Maisie's hips. "I have a face for _that_?"

Maisie nodded. "Yup. One of your cuter ones, actually." She slipped her arms around Amy's waist, locking her fingers across the small of the blonde's back. "And if you were thinking about what _I_ was thinking about?" Maisie tugged Amy closer. "You _really_ should've just been doing -"

Her words were swallowed by Amy's lips and if Amy had told Karma about that kiss, she'd have said there was no 'woah' and no 'I know' and no 'yup, totally gay' (Reagan) and all there was?

Was a smile.

The moment their lips met and Amy felt Maisie kissing her back and felt her heart racing in her chest and then slow itself and steady as the most perfect fucking sense of calm washed over her (like _home_ ) Amy smiled. She smiled into the kiss and she felt Maisie smile back and she kept smiling and kissing and smiling and kissing and those 'college' kids (at least the guys) let out another chorus of 'oooooh' and Amy and Maisie both flipped them off without ever once breaking the kiss.

Or the smile.

And then some four months later, Amy waited and she watched and she finally saw the two of them breaking through the crowd and coming toward her and Karma was frowning and straining to keep up and totally _pissed_ but Maisie saw the railing and then she saw Amy, waiting for her, and she smiled.

And the smile Amy gave her back? Total no doubter.

* * *

It had been thirty… no… _forty_ seconds and Maisie hadn't disconnected the call and Karma had to think of that as something of a win.

"You thought we should talk," Maisie said, her voice tinny and flat through Karma's laptop speakers but, yeah, there was no mistaking _that_ tone. " _You_. Thought _we_ should talk."

Karma nodded. "About Am -"

"I know about _what_ , Karma," Maisie snapped. "I'm not a fucking idiot, despite what my… what Amy may think right now."

"She doesn -"

Maisie cut her off again (and if she was gonna keep that up, it was going to be a _short_ conversation.) "Don't tell me what Amy thinks, Karma,' she said. "Cause if _you're_ calling me, then that means you've got even less of an idea about _that_ than I do."

Karma could have argued. There were a million reasons why she might've called Maisie. Maybe Amy wanted to end it and she couldn't say the words herself or maybe she was hoping that Karma could help Maisie to understand their connection and their bond and why two years and a fucking _rock_ could never measure up.

Or, maybe Karma thought, I could be calling to beg her to let Amy go.

Except _that_ would never happen. The letting go part. The begging? Karma couldn't be sure that _wouldn't_ happen in the first three minutes of the conversation.

Karma thought, briefly, of pointing out to Maisie that she _did_ have an idea, a very _good_ one, actually, one Amy had given her, one the blonde had spelled out for her in no uncertain terms.

Except Karma knew better because she was talking to Maisie and Maisie knew _Amy_ and that meant Maisie knew.

When it came to Amy?

Nothing was _ever_ certain.

So Karma didn't say any of that and she didn't beg and she didn't cry and she didn't plead.

"I love her," she said. "I love Amy. I'm _in_ love with her and I will do _anything_ for her. Will you?"


	19. Chapter 19

Long after it's all said and it's all done and she's sitting on her balcony watching the palms blowing in the breeze, Amy will remember the look.

She'd seen it before, _that_ look, the one on Karma's face, the first thing Amy saw when she walked back through the door of the apartment. She hadn't _planned_ to go back. She had her credit card and her ID and that would be all she'd need to check in at the airport and get her ticket and her boarding pass and her way on to the flight that would take her back to whatever life she might have left in California. Sure, her _stuff_ was still at Karma's but that was all it was, just _stuff_ , there was nothing Amy'd brought she couldn't replace.

Anything that _couldn't_ just be replaced wasn't a thing or a _what_ that she'd be leaving behind, it was _who_. Or, maybe, it was _who_ she'd left in Cali or, maybe (with the way her luck had been running) it was _both_ of them. Amy didn't know what, or even _how_ , to think about it anymore and even trying made her head hurt and her heart ache and her throat close up like she'd just downed a handful of peanuts, but she was pretty sure there was no epipen for this. Up was down and down was up and Karma was now and Maisie was forever or maybe it was the other way around or maybe, probably, _almost assuredly_ , they were both _never_ and she had no one to blame for that but herself.

Amy hadn't _planned_ to go back to the apartment but she hadn't really planned _any_ of this, she _couldn't._ She wasn't Karma and didn't plan well to begin with and what little ability she'd had to think more than five minutes in front of her had vanished, had disappeared, had up and fucking _left_ her the moment Maisie had asked (and she _hadn't_ said 'yes' and fuck _all_ , how much easier would this all be if she just _had_ ) and her brain went on autopilot (with a GPS heading of Karma) and it hadn't come back, not in the moment Karma confessed all in the dark and _definitely_ not in the Disney Store or on the street or even the steps of the dorm and _fuck it_ this all couldn't have gone worse if she _had_ planned it.

She _hadn't_ planned though and if she'd _known_ , if she'd known that she'd be greeted with _that_ look and then with Karma's lips and then with her hands roaming _everywhere_ and then her skin and her touch and her…

_Fuck._

Amy likes to think (and would definitely _say_ if asked but, well, that'll _never_ happen) that if she'd known what would happen, if she'd known she and Karma would end up _together_ like _that_ , if she'd known she would become just like her mother (and let's face it, she often thinks, that was probably inevitable), if she'd known she'd do the one thing Maisie _should_ have found unforgivable, that she wouldn't have gone back. She likes to think, as she sits out on that balcony and watches those palms, that if she'd known, she'd have had the strength to hail a cab and spend the night at a hotel or the airport or on a park bench and never ever have gone back.

She likes to _think_ that and, if ever asked, that would be her story and she'd stick to it.

It's a fucking lie, but she likes to think it. Sometimes, after it's all said and done, thinking _that_ is the only thing that gets her out of bed in the morning and the only thing that makes her think she might (maybe) (kind of) (not really _at all_ ) deserve the chance she's been given.

Sometimes it's the only thing that keeps Amy's mind right where it is and not drifting cross country and wondering _what the fuck_ Karma was thinking and _how the fuck_ Karma could have done what she did and _why the fuck_ she never saw it coming.

Amy didn't plan to go back and yet, somehow, that's _exactly_ what she did and she's never been quite sure _how_ except maybe that her feet and her legs and her subconscious knew something the rest of her didn't. Maybe _they_ had the ESP and they knew Karma was waiting, that she'd been prepping a speech for the last hour, a speech she'd forget in a rush of kisses and those roaming hands and struggling to get Amy's clothes off before either of them had the time to think because thinking would have led to second guessing and second guessing would have led to Amy running from the apartment and leaving all her _stuff_ behind, leaving it all there with Karma who would never be able to bring herself to part with one single _bit_ of it (which would have put Amy's _stuff_ a step ahead of _Amy_ herself but she doesn't think about that either.)

Amy _likes_ to think that it if either of them _had_ thought in those moments right after she walked through the door that maybe…

No.

She likes to _think_ it, but she _knows_ better and she _knows_ they'd still have ended up on the bed and she'd still have ended up between Karma's legs and Karma still would've ended up screaming her name and then whispering 'I love you' over and over and over even as she slid down down down and they finally shared _everything_.

Amy might like to think they wouldn't have but she _knows_ that's not true because it had been bubbling and simmering and rising to a boil just beneath the surface since high school and she knew (and so did Karma) (and probably so did _Maisie_ , once she knew there was something there _still_ ) that there was only one way it would ever end.

Karma, Amy knew, always thought sex was the end. The end of the new and the end of the exciting and the end of the beginning and, to Karma, that was the end of everything good because nothing that came after ever _worked_. It all always fell apart and broke and led to nothing but pain and heartbreak and recriminations and someone hating someone else even if they should have been hating themselves just as much or maybe even more.

When it's all said and it's all done and Amy's watching those fucking palms swaying and slowly drinking a glass of wine (and she's lost count of how many) and it's doing _nothing_ to fill the fucking hole inside?

She knows Karma was right.

* * *

It wasn't how she planned it.

In the end, _Karma_ will keep going back to _that_. It wasn't how she planned it and she _did_ plan because, well, _her_. It was, she knew (then and now and later) that it might not have been how she planned it but it was how she _wanted_ it and maybe (not _maybe_ ) how she needed it. She knew from the moment Amy walked through the door that she wouldn't be able to do the _right_ thing and… _fuck…_ she didn't even know if it _was_ right. _She_ was right, _they_ were right, her and Amy _together_ was right, they _had_ to be because otherwise she'd spent half her life wanting the _wrong_ thing and yeah, Karma knew _that_ wasn't unheard of (see: Booker, Liam and Others, Approval) but she _and_ Amy couldn't be wrong.

They just couldn't be wrong and Karma knew they never would be. Not for her. Not then, not now, not ever.

But when it's all said and it's all done and she's curled in a bed that _isn't_ hers with arms around her that _aren't_ Amy's and a pain in her heart that _is_ all too fucking familiar, Karma knows _that's_ the key.

Not for _her_.

It might not have been how she planned but it was what _she_ wanted and what _she_ needed. Not _just_ needed… it was how she'd _dreamt_ of it, how she'd fantasized about it, even how she'd described it once (to Davis, while drunk, while he fucked her against her closet door, her every word pushing him further and further, so far that, in the end, he didn't flinch when she'd cried out Amy's name instead of his and then refused to talk about it or think about it fucking _deal_ with it after and fucked him again just to shut him up.)

It was _all_ of _that_ for her but _she_ didn't matter because _she_ was only her, only half the puzzle and if the other half didn't fit… well…

When it's all said and it's all done? Karma wonders, more often than she should (so, pretty much _constantly_ ) if that puzzle would have fit, if it could have been finished, if all the pieces could have connected and the picture could have come clear, if she'd just been a little… faster. A little quicker. If she hadn't taken so long to figure it out (and really it wasn't even the figuring but the acting, the doing, the not fucking _hiding_ ) if maybe Amy wouldn't be on some balcony watching palms and she wouldn't be in some arms that aren't the _right_ ones and Maisie…

Maisie would be with someone who loved her and only her and not caught in the middle of their shit and Karma really wants, even after it's all said and done, to feel bad about that, but…

But _fuck her_.

Karma tried to be a better person, she _was_ a better person but even better has its limits and feeling bad for Maisie is, in the end, just one step too fucking far.

It just isn't in the plan.

* * *

Karma had a speech. She worked hard on it. Hard and fast, almost feverishly cause she didn't know when Amy would be back

(or _if_ she'd be back and yes, she already had a contingency plan for chasing her down at the airport and commandeering the PA system and giving her speech so everyone could hear even as security was dragging her off and then Amy would chase them through the airport, vaulting chairs and crashing into people and calling out her love.)

(Of _course_ she had a plan.)

Karma had a speech (and a plan) and it (the speech) was long and wordy and full of feels and emotions and pleading and feels and begging and feels and _love_ , so much love that she knew the words would never measure up to what was in her heart and, when she thinks about it later, she wonders if maybe that's why she abandoned it so quickly, why she ever even said a word and just rushed Amy (and _then_ said a word, _eight_ actually, as she pressed her lips against Amy's skin and let her hands roam under Amy's shirt and moaned as their hips pressed together), why she pinned Amy against the door and kissed her and touched her and tried (so fucking hard) to _show_ her, at least once (and she knew, even then, it would be _once_ ), what she'd never been able to _tell_ her.

Karma had a speech. She had more than one. She had the brief and to the point and lay it all out there quick and dirty speech. She had the long winded, theatrical, _so_ dramatic and _so_ weepy and _so_ guaranteed to leave audiences cheering in their seats speech. She even had, for a moment or two, the _Love Actually_ speech. It would be perfect. Amy would come through the door and see Karma standing there, cue cards in hand, covered with all her words (that would never, _ever_ , express even the tiniest bit of what she _felt)_ and she'd be like the guy from _Walking Dead_ professing his love and Amy would be like (a hotter and sexier and _better_ ) Keira Knightley and it would be just like the movie.

Except unlike Keira, Amy would leave the husband (and yes, Maisie was the hubby in Karma's scenario and yes, Karma knew they weren't married, _yet_ , and why would she get bogged down in _details_ when _Amy_ ) and they _would_ get the happily ever instead of one chaste kiss in the street.

Because _one_ kiss would never be _enough_ no matter what that fucker in the movie said.

But that plan went out the window cause Karma's handwriting sucked. And she didn't have any big cue cards. And, if after all this time, if she was going to confess her love for Amy when they _both_ actually knew it was happening, then Karma thought Amy deserved to _hear_ it.

After all, Maisie had.

_I love Amy. I'm in love with her and I will do anything for her._

Karma paced back and forth by her bed, going over and over her speech and trying (not very successfully) to not think about what Maisie thought about _that_. She knew Maisie thought it was a line in the sand, a threat, a gauntlet being thrown down, a glove being slapped across her cheeks as Karma challenged her to a duel at sunrise for the fair maiden's heart. To Maisie, Karma figured, it was a call to war.

Except it wasn't.

The war, Karma had _wanted_ to say, was over and she knew it. She'd known it since that fucking _rock_ and since Amy had talked to Lauren and had said what she said (even if it was what she didn't say that told Karma _everything_ ) and since the Disney Store and the street and, really, if she was being _honest_?

Since ' _just not like that'_ and ' _I can't_ ' and ' _have a good summer, Karma_ '.

How did that song go? Everybody knows the war is over, everybody knows the good guys lost and yeah, Karma was assuming she was the 'good guys' even if definitely Maisie and maybe Lauren (and maybe even _Amy_ ) might disagree, but it was her head and her thoughts and she could cling to whatever delusions she had left.

Karma wanted to say that (just like she had her speech for Amy) but she _couldn't_ and so she _didn't_ , so instead she said "would you" even though she already knew the answer. Amy had said it, out there on the street. She'd told Karma Maisie would always take her back, would always give her another chance, that her love was that unconditional (and if Karma thought that made Maisie sound a little _too_ perfect and a little too much like a Mary Sue, well, she just had to conveniently forget that Amy's description of Maisie fit _her_ to a fucking T too and maybe then it would be OK.)

Karma knew. But she had to _know_.

"I will do anything for her. Will you?"

It was a quiz in Karma's head.

Would you take Amy back if she said she had to think about it? Would you take Amy back if she left you in Cali and flew to me? What if she said she loved me (and yes, Karma knew she _hadn't_ but...well.. _fuck you_ very much for pointing it out, as if she wasn't thinking it enough all _on her own_.) What if she came here to find out how I felt and what if how I felt would make her decision for her and what if she lied to you and told you she was home and what if she spent the night ( _all_ night) fucking me the way she should have been for the last five fucking years?

"What if Amy was on her flight tomorrow?" Karma asked. "What if she landed in California right on time, with all her baggage and a plan to never leave again?" She watched Maisie on the screen and a fucking _blind_ woman could have seen the light that flickered behind the other woman's eyes at the very thought of Amy coming back to her. "What if Amy came back to you even after she and I…"

Karma stared down at the desk in front of the laptop, at the thin sliver of wood between the computer and the edge and felt like she'd been dancing on it, skating on that edge for so damn long and now all she wanted to do, all she _could_ do, was fall off.

Fall. Or _dive_. Out of her control. Or completely in it.

"If Amy came back tomorrow and said she wanted you and wanted to marry you," Karma said, still staring at the desk. "Would you take her back?"

Maisie was silent for a long moment. "Is she here because she wants _me_?" she asked. "Or because _you_ don't want _her_?"

Karma lifted her eyes and stared at the other woman across the country. "Would it matter?" she asked and she got the answer she knew she would and she nodded and clicked off the call without another word.

And went about planning her speech.

She ditched the _Love Actually_. She second guessed writing a song. She chose not to head out of the apartment and scour the city, calling Amy's name on every corner. She paced and she sat and she paced and she leaned against the desk and she paced and she fought off one panic attack after another and she prepped and she planned and she was _so fucking ready_.

And then Amy walked through the door.

After everything is said and everything is done, Karma will _never_ remember the five or six seconds between Amy coming through the door and their lips crashing together. She'll never remember the conscious decision to charge Amy and pin her against the door or to kiss her or to let her hands roam up under the back of the blonde's shirt or even the moment (and she might not _remember_ it but Karma's sure it was there) when she marveled (and reveled and gloated and celebrated and _thanked God_ ) that Amy didn't push her away.

She won't remember all that. But she will remember the ring.

Amy pushed back, moving them off the door and into the room, driving Karma toward the bed (like she needed the steering) and Karma's hands found their way to the hem of Amy's shirt and tugged it up and over the blonde's head even as Amy shoved her down onto the bed and straddled her and Karma's eyes (and hands) found that fucking _rock_ as Amy's hips pressed down onto her and she stifled a moan.

Karma gripped it, she held that diamond in her hands, trapping it between them as Amy hovered over her. "Do you want me?" Karma asked and Amy nodded but that… _no_ … that wasn't near fucking _good enough_ so Karma reached her other hand up and slipped it behind Amy's neck, pulling her down and she pressed her lips to Amy's ear and whispered again. "Do you want _me_?" Amy nodded but Karma held tight. "Say it," she whispered. "Say _yes_."

Amy tipped her cheek against Karma's and let her hands wander across and under the other girl's shirt and up and up and up and Karma moaned as Amy's hands found her breasts as _she_ whispered to _her_.

"Yes."

Karma's back arched as Amy's hands cupped and squeezed and her tongue and her lips worked along the skin of Karma's neck as the redhead yanked hard once on the chain, snapping it against Amy's skin, that fucking rock coming loose in her hand and then falling falling falling to the floor as Amy guided Karma's hands up over her head, pinning them there as she stared down.

"Yes," Amy said. "Always yes."


	20. Chapter 20

She tried. She really did.

Karma tried _so_ very hard to find the words, the right combination of consonants and vowels, of nouns and verbs, the sentences and paragraphs and plaintive pleas that would make Amy stay.

The ones that would make her _want_ to.

Three times. Four times. Five and a sixth and a seventh, and not a one of them that amounted to much more than some version of _Dear Amy._

_Dear Amy_

_My Dearest Amy_

_My Friend_

_My Love_

_Aimes. My Love. I'm so sorry. I don't know why it took me so long._

_Too_ long.

None of them worked, none of them said _it_ , that _thing_ that Karma knew was lurking there, somewhere, in her brain or her heart or her soul or her fucking _toes_. It didn't _matter_ where it was. All that mattered was that she _couldn't_ find it and the night was passing swiftly and she was running out of time

There was something there, Karma _knew_ that. There were some magic words, some perfectly chosen turn of phrase that she'd never said, but she'd probably _thought_ of _before_ , when it didn't matter, when she wasn't _ready_ , when she couldn't bring herself to admit it in her own heart, much less _out loud_.

She'd thought of it, she was sure, in _those_ moments, but there was that block, that thing, that fucking _wall_ in the way that kept the _right_ words from coming and instead gave her ' _not like that'_ and ' _I never thought the way I loved you wouldn't be enough_ ' and ' _I can't.'_

Can't.

Couldn't.

_Didn't_.

Karma was sure she'd thought of the words _then_ , but she couldn't think of them _now_ and so she went through one and then two and then three and four and five sheets of paper. She clutched the pen in her hand till her fingers were numb and she stared at the blank page ( _pages_ ) in front of her until the white of the paper swam in the faint light from her one desk lamp.

And still those fucking words _wouldn't come_.

She stared at the paper and the desk and the wall and into the sorta-not-really-that-bright light of the lamp until she saw dancing dots of color and had to look away. She couldn't turn, she didn't _dare_ spin around in her chair and look at _her_ , at _Amy_ , sleeping the sleep of the dead in the bed behind her.

She _wanted_ to. Karma wanted _nothing_ quite as much as to turn around and stare. She'd still be able to see Amy, even in the mostly dark. She'd still be able to see _her_ , still be able to let her eyes trace over the curves and the angles and the slopes of her body beneath the one thin sheet.

Karma _wanted_ to look. Fuck _that_ , she wanted to jump from the chair and crawl back into the bed, beneath that sheet where Amy still _was_ (she was still _there_ , right then, she wasn't gone _yet_ ) and let her hands roam, let her fingers dance so slowly and gently along Amy's skin.

_Again_.

Karma had never imagined the… _rush_ … (it wasn't the _right_ word but she couldn't find _any_ words just then and so it would have to _do_ )... the way it would make her feel to _touch_ Amy. To _feel_ her and _explore_ her and...

_Fuck._

She'd gotten good at it - sex - over the years. With Liam and then with Davis and with the others she didn't want to think about, not with Amy so close. It was, she often thought, not unlike music, not that different from playing her guitar or learning the scales.

Practice makes perfect.

She'd gotten good at it but she'd never… _felt it_. Sure, she felt it when they did it to _her_ , when Liam or Davis or one of the others was between her legs or on top of her or behind her where she couldn't see and she could pretend they were anyone.

(Like it was ever just _anyone_ )

_That_ , she had felt and that she had _liked_. Some (Davis) more than others (Liam) and some (Davis) she _almost_ didn't _have_ to pretend with. But she'd never felt a thing when she did it to them, nothing more than the way a musician might feel at soundcheck, tuning up, getting ready, a means to the ultimate end, a necessary step.

And then she'd touched Amy.

She'd never known it could be like _that_ , not with another woman, not with _anyone._

Karma couldn't turn around because if she did, she'd see her and if she saw her it would all play out again in her mind (like it wasn't already) and she'd never be able to resist. She'd remember the way Amy had… responded… and no… that wasn't _right_. Too clinical. Too impersonal.

The way Amy had moved, the way her body seemed to have a mind (or a soul) of its own as Karma touched and licked and kissed her way over every inch of it.

If she looked, she'd remember. She would remember the way Amy's nipples had stiffened, hardening against her tongue, the feel of it enough to turn Karma's tentative licks into something more, the way Amy's reactions had urged her on, suckling and nipping as her hand drifted down Amy's stomach.

If she looked, Karma knew, she'd remember. She would remember the way her fear and nerves had trapped her, the way her hand had traced back and forth and around Amy's waist and then just a little lower, _just_ above where Amy _so desperately_ wanted her to go. She'd remember the way Amy's hips ground against the air and her back arched and the way Amy's hands gripped her hair, pressing Karma tightly against her breast and every moan was more encouragement, urging Karma on.

She'd remember the way Amy had finally gripped her wrist and guided her hand down between her legs, pressing Karma's fingers against her slick folds as she moaned into her lover's ear.

"Karma. _Please,"_ she choked out. "I _need you_."

She knew… Karma _knew_ that she didn't have to _look_ to remember _that_. The feel of Amy on her hand, the warmth as she gently slid her fingers against her, the harsh 'oh' the escaped her best friend's lips as Karma's fingers found her clit, the whimper… almost a _sob_ … as Karma sank one and then another finger inside of her, the way Amy's head tipped back and her eyes squeezed shut and her own hands moved to hold Karma's in place, not even needing her to move, not as long as she was there, inside her.

"Yes," Amy muttered. "Always yes."

Amy had already given her the most mind numbing orgasm of her life just minutes before but _that_ was already a distant memory, that was already driven out of her mind by this new… moment… this new _feeling_ … this new _rush_ of knowing that it was _her._

_She_ had done this to Amy.

Karma knew she'd _never_ forget that, and she knew she didn't have to _look_ to remember it, just like she didn't have to look to remember… or _not_ remember, as it were… the beginning.

The beginning, that first moment when she'd chosen to forget the speech and the grand dramatic gestures and just fucking _kiss_ Amy (a fairly dramatic gesture itself, she figured) was a blank, and absolute fucking blank in Karma's mind. She didn't remember how it started, didn't remember what it was (instinct or desire or desperation) (all fucking _three_ ) that pushed her off that bed and across the room, what drove her to back Amy against the door and crash their lips together.

Karma had heard it described that way, had read it in some of those awful fanfics Ashlyn insisted on forwarding her. Crashed. Their lips crashed together. She'd always thought it was sort of silly, a ridiculous way to describe something that even at it's _hardest_ was still soft and yielding and a sensuous give and take. She'd never gotten it.

She did now.

They had _crashed_. No. _Collided_. It wasn't gentle and it wasn't yielding, not in the least. They both pressed forward, leaning into it, neither of them giving so much as an inch. It had been so fucking _long_ coming, neither of them were willing to back down, to let the other control. It was hard and forceful and there was no give and a whole lot of _take_ , Amy capturing Karma's tongue between her lips and sucking on it while her hands found Karma's hips and pulled her in, trapping her, imprisoning her even as Karma pressed her back against the door, her hands roaming under Amy's shirt, her nails tracing tracks along the blonde's back.

Karma didn't remember the moment, the one she knew she _had_ to have, the one that made her throw the speech away and attack. She didn't remember the decision, the ones she knew she _had_ to have made, to risk losing Amy forever just to have her for one night. She didn't remember the words she was going to say or the thoughts that ran through her mind in the split second before she kissed Amy (only their second _real_ kiss.) It's all a blank.

She just remembered Amy.

Karma remembered the _feel_ of her, so soft and warm under her hands and then her lips and then _all of her_. So soft and warm and perfect and so fucking _new_ and _that's_ just fucking weird to her cause it wasn't the first time, it wasn't the first time she'd touched Amy. Before she'd pinned the blonde against the door, before she'd felt the dimples on Amy's back beneath her fingers, before she'd slowly dragged her tongue against Amy's bottom lip and then along the curve of her neck, tasting Amy's pulse against her lips, before _all that_ , Karma had touched Amy a thousand times.

She'd held Amy's hand walking to and from school. Karma had cradled Amy in her arms, with the blonde's head on her chest while she cried for Reagan. She'd hugged her when they finally came back together after _that_ summer, holding her a bit too long and and a bit too hard. She'd fallen asleep next to her and _near_ her and woken with their legs tangled and their noses touching and their bodies pressed together so many times it should have been old hat. Touching Amy should have been familiar and comfortable and something like home.

It was like touching a stranger and Karma had discovered, rather _quickly_ , that touching Amy in all those ways for all those years was _nothing_ like touching her like _that_ and she couldn't quite process that, couldn't quite figure out how to handle it.

It was Amy. She could see her face, the face she knew so well, better than her own, even as Amy pushed her back from the door, even as the blonde steered them toward the bed and Karma could feel her heart pounding in her chest (how could Amy not _hear_ it?) and that feeling of anticipation bubbling in her stomach, the one she'd get sometimes before a kiss, when her eyes locked with someone and she knew ( _knew_ ) what was coming and _God_ , that had _always_ been her favorite part, sometimes so much better than anything that had come after.

She knew it wouldn't be that way with Amy. Not a fucking chance.

But Karma could still see her and the sight of her was enough to keep it in her mind that this was _Amy_ , the same Amy… _her_ Amy… but it didn't feel like _her_ , it didn't feel like the girl she'd grown up with and it was like meeting someone new but so much better ( _so fucking much better_ ) because it was still _Amy_.

There was, Karma realized, an entire side to Amy, an entire other _person_ she'd never known, one that Reagan had seen and those few… indiscretions… had gotten glimpses of and one that Maisie _knew_ , probably as well as Karma knew _her_ Amy.

And the thought of _that_? That she was meeting the whole, that the _only thing_ they had never shared was disappearing with every kiss and every touch and every _feel_ was almost enough to push Karma over the edge right then and there.

Her hands found the hem of Amy's shirt and the blonde raised her arms just long enough for Karma to tug it up and over her head and Karma knew she'd seen Amy like this so many times, in the locker room and in bikinis and just changing for sleep at night.

She knew that.

And none of that stopped Karma's heart from _stopping_ at the sight of her, at the sight of those fucking abs she remembered from the threesome that wasn't (and had thought about _so_ many times over the years), at the sight of Amy's perfect pale skin and the soft curve of her breasts and the way Karma could let her eyes linger and drift, flowing down to Amy's waist and the rounding of her hips…

Karma knew she'd seen it all before and even, if she was being honest, _felt_ a bit of this before, a bit of the desire and the need and the fucking craving. But this was _different_.

Now she _could_. She could stare and she could crave and she could _want_ (and she _so_ fucking did) and she could dip her head to Amy's chest and let her tongue lash against the blonde's skin, she could dot soft gentle kisses down Amy's stomach, she could let her hands slip beneath the fabric of Amy's bra and feel _her_.

She could kiss and lick and taste because, for the first time, Amy really was _hers_.

Karma didn't remember how it started, but she knew she'd never forget _that_.

And that, she knew, was going to be hell later.

But hell was still a long way off, a night away at least, a lifetime maybe, Karma knew, if she gave into her worse angels, if she let her needs and her wants rule over her. And as Amy pressed her back onto the bed and straddled her, their hips grinding together, Karma knew she would, she knew that she'd give in and be greedy because it was _Amy_ and she was _there_ and every single touch and every single kiss and every single fucking _look_ , like the one Amy was giving her right then, staring down at her with heavy-lidded eyes, pupils dilated and dancing with promises of all the things she was going to do, was one more thing Karma knew she couldn't live without.

And then she saw the ring and she remembered. She remembered what it was ( _who_ it was) that _Amy_ couldn't live without.

She held that ring in her hand and it didn't ( _somehow_ ) burn. It was heavier than she would have thought and Karma had a brief moment, a split of a split second of an urge to slip it onto her finger, to claim it and the woman it was attached to for her own.

Karma looked up at Amy and the words came unbidden. "Do you want me?" It wasn't what she meant to ask, those weren't the words she wondered about. Of course Amy _wanted_ her. Amy had wanted her since that first kiss, since 'woah' and 'I know', since every kiss and every touch that had come between then and now, all through Liam and Reagan and every pointless and forgettable fling either of them had ever had.

Even through Maisie.

Karma had _no doubt_ Amy wanted her. She didn't need to feel Amy's grinding hips atop her or to see the hard diamonds of her nipples poking through her bra, or to hear the shallow gasps of breath that barely filled Amy's lungs to know _that_. For Amy, Karma was the undiscovered country, the Fountain of Youth, the Holy fucking Grail.

Amy _wanted_ her in ways Karma couldn't even imagine and Karma knew that even before Amy nodded and though it wasn't the question she wanted answered, it wasn't what she _needed_ to know, it was _something_ , knowing that Amy wanted her, knowing that this perfect creature could find _her_ desirable and a nod just wasn't fucking enough.

Karma needed the words.

"Do you want _me_?" she asked again as she tugged Amy to her, whispering the words into the blonde's ear. "Say it," Karma whispered. "Say _yes_."

Karma waited, her eyes shutting tight as she felt Amy's cheek brush against hers and then her hands… oh _God_ , her _hands_ … slipped under Karma's shirt and her fingers traced a soft trail up and up and up and then they were _there_ , Amy's hands found her breasts and Karma moaned and her hips bucked and she could _feel_ the smile, the self-satisfied grin that curled Amy's lips as _she_ whispered in Karma's ear.

"Yes."

Karma's back arched up off the bed as those hands - _Amy's_ hands - cupped and squeezed and all the breath left her body as Amy's tongue and her lips worked their way down the length of Karma's neck and that fucking rock came loose, the chain snapping and then Karma was letting it go as Amy guided her hands up over her head, pinning them there as she stared down at Karma.

"Yes," Amy said. It was no whisper then, it was loud and clear and so fucking _true_. "Always yes."

Amy _wanted_ her, of _that_ , Karma had no doubt and really, she never had.

Everything else…

But everything else was for later and now was for them and Karma pulled her hands free and brought them to cup Amy's cheeks as the blonde leaned in for a slow kiss, her tongue darting in and out, teasing Karma's as she tried to chase, another smile creasing Amy's lips as Karma moaned in both pleasure and frustration before pulling back, her hands on Amy's shoulders to keep their distance.

"Prove it."

There was a time when Karma thought she knew every one of Amy's looks. The exasperated (usually for her), the loving (always for her), the 'seriously, this is your plan' (no one but her), but the look that crossed Amy's face at that moment… she'd never seen _that_ one and Karma knew if she had, she'd remember, either from the chill it sent up her spine or the racing of her heart or the warmth between her legs.

She knew, even before Amy's hands had finished yanking her top off, even before they'd popped the button on her jeans with a practiced ease Liam would have envied, even before Amy had slowly disappeared, slipping further and further down the bed with every tug on those jeans and her underwear with them, with every inch further they slipped down Karma's legs, she knew.

Amy was going to break her. In more ways than one.

Karma leaned back and stared at the ceiling cause there was no way ( _no fucking way_ ) she could _watch._ She felt Amy pull her jeans and she raised her hips to help and then Amy stopped, the jeans still pooled around Karma's ankles and the redhead worried that something was wrong, that Amy had come to her senses, that she had -

And then there was a sound, something like a growl and then Amy was _there_ , her hands on Karma's thighs, guiding them apart and Karma felt a warm rush of breath against her skin and then Amy's tongue flicking against her clit once and then again and then again and oh… _fuck_ … her hands tangled in Amy's hair and her hips bucked up, fighting for more.

Amy was insistent and unwavering. Her hands left Karma's legs and trailed up her body, quickly finding the front clasp to the other girl's bra and popping it, her hands shoving the cups aside as they flowed over Karma's breasts, her thumbs brushing against sensitive nipples as she replaced her tongue with her lips, sucking on Karma's clit, determined to get her lover off fast and hard.

There would be time, Amy figured, for slow and gentle and long and teasing and taking her time to fucking feast on Karma (and now that she had a taste, Amy _knew_ she'd need more) later.

Karma moaned at every touch and every lick and every suck, her hands in Amy's hair clenched into fists and she pulled the blonde even closer, grinding up and against her. It was all so good, so fucking _right_ and so much better than anything or anyone else, but Karma needed… _more._

She bucked her hips again, her hands pressing down and Amy took the hint, releasing Karma's clit and sliding her tongue down and along the length of her as Karma shuddered and hissed out a ' _Fuck'_ as Amy brought one hand back down between her legs, rolling her thumb along Karma's clit as she slipped lower, spearing her tongue inside her and Karma arched up off the bed, her thighs brushing across Amy's cheeks even as the blonde swirled her tongue, desperate to taste every bit, every fucking _drop_ of Karma.

It was too much. It was _everything_. Amy moaned into Karma as she squeezed her own thighs together and she knew it wouldn't take much, not even a _touch_ , not with the feeling and the _knowing_ , the visual and the feel and the taste of being _inside_ Karma and Amy fucked her faster, wanting nothing more than to make her cum, to make Karma _feel_ her and she brushed her thumb across the other girl's clit one last time and Karma exploded, moaning out Amy's name and _that_ was all it took to drive Amy right past the edge and they came together with Amy's tongue inside her and Karma's hands tangled in her hair.

They had shared something, maybe the only thing they never had before and, maybe, Karma knew, the _last_ thing.

She did turn around then. She _had_ to. She turned and stared and soaked it all in as best she could, trying to commit it all to memory because Karma knew (she fucking _knew_ ) that was all it soon would be because no matter what she tried, no matter what she thought of, no matter what way she tried to say it, she couldn't find those words.

She couldn't find them and she knew...she _knew_ she _shouldn't_. Those weren't her words anymore, they hadn't been in so very long. Maybe once upon a time, before Reagan maybe, before Liam perhaps, before the bus and the _Pussy Explosion_ and ' _I can't'_ definitely. Then, they had been her words, then she had had the right to say them, the right to ask Amy to stay.

She _had_. She'd _asked._

And Amy had left.

And now Karma understood what she'd probably known all along.

Only part of Amy had ever come back. And yeah, that part _wanted_ her.

But it _loved_ someone else and all the proof Karma needed of that she'd heard in the call to Lauren, the brief moments when Amy showed the fear of losing Maisie, in those words Maisie had said to her so long ago on a tiny strip of beach.

_Amy isn't sixteen and trying to find a life outside of you_

No, Karma thought, she wasn't _trying_.

She had.

Karma knew why she couldn't find the words. Because they weren't hers. Oh, there were words, there were so many she could say, so many she could use and so many of them, she knew, would do _exactly_ what she wanted. They'd make Amy stay. They'd make her break up with Maisie and they'd make her transfer schools and they'd make Ashlyn move out so Amy could move in and they'd make them soulmates (finally) in every fucking way.

She had the power. She _knew_ she did.

But the words… the _important_ ones… they weren't _hers_.

_If Amy came back tomorrow and said she wanted you and wanted to marry you, would you take her back?_

_Is she here because she wants me? Or because you don't want her?_

_Would it matter?_

Karma had expected a long silence, a deep moment of introspection and self reflection and thought.

She got three seconds.

"No," Maisie had said. "It wouldn't matter at all."

How do you tell someone what they mean to you when they mean _everything_?

_That's_ how.

Karma stood from her chair and made her way to the side of the bed. She knelt on the floor, leaning against the mattress, as close to Amy's pillow as she dared.

"I've known you all my life," she whispered. "And I'll love you for the _rest_ of it. But…"

She _felt_ it before she _saw_ it. The ring. On the floor by the side of the bed, one sharp point digging into her skin. Karma reached down and plucked it from the floor, turning it over in her hand.

"Only part of you ever came back to me," she said softly. "And that part… she's my best friend and she's my soulmate and…" Karma ran her thumb over the ring, watched the way the faint light from the lamp flickered against the diamond. "But you never would have taken this if you'd had even…"

She stood, quickly, moving fast before she changed her mind. She headed to the desk and grabbed up one of the papers, folding it over and scribbling hastily, while she still could, before the tears made it too hard to see the words.

Karma turned back to the bed, the ring in one hand, the note in the other. She knew what it was, what it _said_ and what that would _do_. She knew she'd be spending the rest of the night with Davis, maybe the rest of the week or the semester or however long it took Ashlyn to find them another place, if she even could.

But there was no way Karma could ever come back _here_.

She set the note down first, resting it against the pillow next to Amy's. And then the ring, in front of it, nestled down into the mattress where it wouldn't fall off or get lost.

And then Karma looked down at Amy and she reached out a hand to brush her hair back out of her face but she stopped, her fingers inches away.

"You're my best friend, Amy. My other half. The salt to my pepper, the moon to my…" Karma pulled her hand back and shook her head. "But you're the love of _her_ life. And she's the love of _yours_. And I love you but I can't…"

Karma's eyes found the note again, her hastily scribbled words so perfectly clear to her even in the dark. And then one last lingering look at the girl she knew she'd never see again and Karma slipped out the door and down the hall and disappeared out the front of the building and into the New York City night.

Amy awoke four hours later to sun streaming in through the curtains and an empty bed beside her, save for the ring and a note. The last two words Karma Ashcroft left her with.

_Say yes._


End file.
